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Title: Because of conscience
        Being a novel relating to the adventures of certain Huguenots in old New York

Author: Amy Ella Blanchard

Illustrator: E. Benson Kennedy

Release date: September 26, 2024 [eBook #74479]

Language: English

Original publication: Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company

Credits: Carla Foust, David Edwards, David E. Brown, Rod Crawford, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BECAUSE OF CONSCIENCE ***





BECAUSE OF CONSCIENCE




BY AMY E. BLANCHARD


  AN INDEPENDENT DAUGHTER
  THREE PRETTY MAIDS
  MISS VANITY
  HER VERY BEST

  _12mo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.25
  per volume_


  TWO GIRLS
  GIRLS TOGETHER
  BETTY OF WYE

  _12mo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.00
  per volume_


  TWENTY LITTLE MAIDENS
  Illustrated by IDA WAUGH

  _Small 4to. $1.25_


[Illustration: “Because you have shown me how powerful a shield a woman
can be, I stand here”
                                                              Page 104]




  Because of Conscience

  _Being a_ NOVEL _relating to the_ ADVENTURES
  _of certain_ HUGUENOTS _in_ OLD NEW YORK

  By
  _Amy E. Blanchard_

  Author of “Her Very Best,” “Betty of Wye,”
  “Two Girls,” “Girls Together,”
  “Three Pretty Maids,”
  etc.

  _With Frontispiece by_
  E. Benson Kennedy

  [Illustration]

  Philadelphia & London
  J. B. Lippincott Company
  1901




  _Copyright, 1901
  By J. B. Lippincott Company_

  _Electrotyped and Printed by
  J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A._




  DEDICATED
  WITH DEEP AFFECTION AND PROFOUND ADMIRATION
  TO

  ELIZA ELVIRA KENYON

  WHOSE LOVING INTEREST AND LOFTY EXAMPLE
  HAVE BEEN MY STAY FOR
  MANY YEARS

                                    A. E. B.




CONTENTS

[Illustration]


  CHAPTER                                PAGE

      I. A WILD MARIGOLD                   11

     II. THE FEAST OF THE FAT CALF         34

    III. THE WAY TO CHURCH                 48

     IV. THE CIDER FROLIC                  64

      V. FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER      81

     VI. FOR LIFE OR DEATH                 98

    VII. WHITHER THOU GOEST               114

   VIII. PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT            131

     IX. THREE PARTINGS                   151

      X. ON SHIPBOARD                     165

     XI. FROM SHIP TO SHORE               177

    XII. GENERAL JACQUES                  195

   XIII. A DAUGHTER OF THE WOODS          215

    XIV. PIERRE, THE ENGAGÉ               229

     XV. MADAM, MY MOTHER                 247

    XVI. ONE NIGHT IN MAY                 265

   XVII. FORGIVENESS                      282

  XVIII. PAPA LOUIS TELLS A STORY         300

    XIX. THE MARK OF THE RED FEATHER      316

     XX. MATHILDE’S TABLEAUX              336




BECAUSE OF CONSCIENCE

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I

A WILD MARIGOLD


Nothing in the world smelled so sweet as fresh sun-dried linen, thought
Alaine as she watched Michelle heaping the white pile upon her strong
arms; unless, indeed, Alaine reflected a moment later, it be a loaf
baking in the oven, yet even that did not suggest odorous grass and
winds laden with the fragrance of hedge and wood. She lay in the long
grass, chin in hands, her brown eyes wandering over the low-growing
objects which her position brought easily within her vision. “Now I
know what it is to be a creature like Fifi; no wonder he is forever
running after the impossible, as it seems to me, for I, gigantically
lifted above him, cannot see the objects on a level with his sharp
eyes.” She watched her dog darting among the stubble at the edge of
the field, and as she idly viewed his gambols her eyes caught sight
of a yellow flower growing near the hedge. She lifted her little head
with its toss of brown hair, then drew her slender, lithe body from
its covert to stand erect and to walk slowly across the open space to
gather the wild marigold, at which she gazed thoughtfully, standing so
still that her shadow scarcely wavered.

The sudden sharp bark of her little dog roused her, and she turned her
head to see some one coming toward her,--a young man swinging along
with an easy, confident tread.

“Good-evening, my cousin,” he cried. “You were so deep in thought that
I fancied I should not move you till I came near enough to touch you.
What are you studying so intently?”

“This.” Alaine held out her yellow blossom. “Tell me, Étienne, does it
turn always to the sun, this yellow marigold?”

“Who told you so?”

“Michelle, and she says it was chosen as her device by Margaret of
Valois because it does truly resemble the sun. It is likewise the
emblem of the Protestants, who say that it signifies that they ever
turn to the true source of light,--God in his heaven. Was Margaret of
Valois Protestant, Étienne, and----”

“Is Michelle, then, Protestant?” Étienne interrupted her by asking.

“Yes, I think so. I know so. She has a little Bible, Étienne, which
she guards sacredly, and she makes long journeys at night to secret
meetings, I fancy. She is very good and devout, Étienne, but still----”

“Still you can cry, ‘À bas les Huguenots!’ is it not so? She would
make you Protestant, my cousin, would she not?”

Alaine looked up at him gravely from under her long lashes. She
wondered how much she dared tell to this cousin to whose opinions she
had deferred ever since she could remember.

“Would she not?” he repeated, smiling as he took the flower, with
rather too rough a hand, Alaine thought. “Can you say with true spirit,
‘À bas les Huguenots’?” He spoke the words so fiercely that Alaine
looked half alarmed, at which he laughed. “There, my cousin,” he
continued, “you are too young to be troubled by these questions, and
your father is too good a Catholic to let you stray from the fold.”

“But I do not wish to be done with questions. I wish to know about
everything, and I mean to ask my father this very night when he returns
from Paris. He will tell me, if you will not. I know he will. You are
very provoking, Étienne, to treat my questions so,” she pouted. “Give
me my flower; I want to wear it.”

“What if I want to wear it?”

“Ah, Étienne, are you, then, a Huguenot?”

“That is nothing to you,” he returned. “I am simply your cousin,
Étienne Villeneau. Better trust me, Alainette; I know more than
Michelle there; in fact, it is an amusement of mine to follow up all
sources of information that will in any way benefit the house of
Villeneau, and I will pass over to you anything in the matter of news
which may be good for you.”

“Which may be good for me! As if news were like doses of medicine. I
will take your news or not, as I like.”

“You will take it whether you like it or not,” he returned, looking at
her for a moment with narrowed eyes. “If your father does not return
from Paris you will be glad enough to run to me for knowledge of him.”

“Étienne, how can you? My father will return from Paris; he said he
would, and he speaks truly at all times.”

“Too truly for once, it is reported. Au revoir, my cousin; when you are
ready to hear what I have to tell send me word.” And he turned on his
heel.

“You are hateful! a beast, a monster!” Alaine cried after him. “I hate
you.”

“I have heard that before,” the young man replied over his shoulder,
“and the next day you have told me the opposite.”

“It will not be the next day this time, nor for many days that you hear
it,” Alaine retorted. “And you have not given me back my flower. Thief!
Robber!”

He tossed the flower on the ground, then, as if urged by an angry
impulse, he stopped and ground it with his heel, but immediately after
he turned, laughing: “That for your naughtiness, fierce little cousin.
Adieu.”

“Go!” she cried. “I am glad to see your wicked body disappear.” Then,
half in tears, she ran to Michelle, who had returned from bearing her
burden into the house and was now picking up the remaining articles
left on the grass to bleach. “Michelle! Michelle!” cried the girl,
“that detestable cousin of mine has been teasing me, and has crushed
the life out of the little yellow marigold I meant for you. Is he not
a beast, Michelle? and how dares he say that there is any doubt of my
father’s return?”

“He says that?” exclaimed Michelle, looking startled.

“He did not say just that, but only if my father should not return that
I would be glad to run to him for news of him. He will return; say so
at once, Michelle.” She shook the good woman’s arm impatiently.

“God grant he returns,” murmured Michelle, gravely. “And your cousin,
what further did he say?”

“Very little, except to ask if you were trying to make me Protestant.
You would like to have me one, you know, Michelle, but my tender flesh
shrinks from the horrors of which you tell me, and that have been going
on since before I was born. I have no wish to be dragged through the
streets, to be beaten or burned or foully abused in any way, and I do
not see how you can be happy with such a possibility hanging over you,
Michelle.”

“Listen to the poor little one,” said Michelle to herself. “She little
knows of the real terrors that threaten us. And your cousin Étienne,
did you tell him I was Protestant?”

“I believe I did, but no doubt he knew it before; and what matters it
anyhow to one of the family to whom you have always been so good? Many
a scrape have you helped my cousin out of. He would defend you to the
last, and so would I, Michelle, Catholic as I am.”

Michelle made no answer. She stood still with her arms clasped around
the web of homespun linen which had been bleaching on the grass. Her
eyes wandered over the fair fields to the spires of Rouen in the
distance, and then to the chateau closer at hand, showing dimly gray
through the trees. She shook her head, but turned with a smile to the
girl at her side. “Come in, my Alainette,” she said; “it grows late and
I have a loaf in the oven. There is no need to be angered by the words
of your cousin, he did but tease; and should your father not return
to-night, there is no doubt some good reason for his staying.” And
Alaine, accustomed as she had been from babyhood to accept Michelle’s
adjustments of her difficulties, forgot her late quarrel with her
cousin and ran on ahead to satisfy her youthful appetite with the fresh
sweet loaf that no one knew better than Michelle how to bake.

The days were over when the Huguenots were an influence, or were at
all formidable in politics. They pursued amiably and tranquilly their
various avocations. The massacre of St. Bartholomew had occurred over
a century before; La Rochelle had fallen more than half a century
back, and Protestant subjects were so faithful in their allegiance to
the throne that even the reigning sovereign, Louis XIV., acknowledged
that his Huguenot servitors had proved their devotion; he had,
moreover, promised that the provisions of the Edict of Nantes should be
faithfully maintained, yet at this very time a decree was issued fixing
the age of seven as that when children were to be allowed to declare
their religious preferences, and forbidding parents to send their
children out of the country to be educated. In consequence, it was a
common thing for children to be enticed from their parents to be placed
in the hands of the clergy, or to be persuaded by rewards or coerced
by threats to attend mass, and then to be claimed by the Church. One
by one the Protestant seats of learning were suppressed, and the
consternation of the Huguenots was great.

Beyond this the system of dragonnades had done much toward terrorizing
and impoverishing the Protestants, so that again numbers were fleeing
the country through every possible means. The times were ripe for the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Of all these things Alaine Hervieu was passingly aware. The horizon of
her little world was bounded by Rouen, beyond whose borders she dwelt,
spending a quiet and joyous existence with Michelle, her foster-mother
and her chief guardian: Michelle with her fund of reminiscences,
too often those thrilling and horrifying tales of massacres and
persecutions. When Michelle waxed too fierce and terrifying Alaine
would fly to her father for diversion, but, to her credit be it said,
she never laid the cause of her frights upon her nurse, but rather
complained of loneliness and begged that dear papa would tell her tales
of his boyhood; of her sainted mother she was quite ready to hear, but
of other saints she heard more than enough from Father Bisset, she
declared. Something rousing and merry she preferred; and her father,
taking her on his knee, would tell her of the Fête des Rois, and
would show her the basket of wax fruit won upon one of those festive
occasions. Or he would sing her some old song, such as

           “Gloria patri ma mere a petri
            Elle a faict une gallette,
  Houppegay, Houppegay, j’ay bu du cidre Alotel.”

And he would tell her of the time when the Boise of St. Nicaise was
dragged away and burned by the young men of St. Godard.

Alaine herself had more than once been taken to the Fête St. Anne
to see, running about the streets, the boys dressed as angels and
the girls as Virgins, and at Easter Eve she had watched the children
when they mocked and hooted at the now scorned herring while the boys
pitched barrels and fish-barrows into the river.

But of late it was of other things he told her; of brave resistance
by those who fought for freedom of thought; of the loss of position by
those who refused to conform to the requirements of state and church;
and sometimes he would sing to her in a low voice, from a small book,
some of those psalms which Michelle, too, sang.

Alaine once showed the little old book with its silver clasps to her
cousin Étienne. “I remember it well,” he told her; “it belonged to
our great-grandfather, for in his day the Psalms of David were held
in great esteem by the ladies and gentlemen of the court, and once on
a time in the heart of Paris, on the favorite promenade, five or six
thousand, including the king and queen of Navarre, joined in singing
psalms.”

“It must have been fine. I wish I had been there,” Alaine exclaimed,
clapping her hands. “Go on, Étienne, what more about the book?”

“It is a seditious thing now,” he returned, turning to the copy of the
Hervieu coat of arms on the inside cover. “If we were as zealous as
we should be we would burn it, for if it were discovered here trouble
might come of it. Let us make a fire of the heretical thing, Alaine.”

“No, no.” Alaine clasped it to her breast. “I like it, Étienne. It is
a family relic. I will keep it safely hidden, and no one shall know of
it.”

She did keep it safely hidden, and her father never once asked for it,
because another book had taken its place; one over which he pored for
hours at a time, and which Alaine knew to be a Bible. Was her father
turning Protestant? she asked herself.

Within the last few months it was Alaine who tried to divert her
father, for often there was a cloud upon his brow, and he was
frequently grave and taciturn, so that his daughter tried to set him
laughing when she could, and when she could not would take refuge with
her cousin Étienne, who lived but a short distance away. He was her
elder by ten years, but a good companion for all that, with whom Alaine
quarrelled once a day upon an average, and upon whom she penitently
used her blandishments when next they met.

She, therefore, was quite ready for Étienne when he appeared upon the
terrace the next morning after her latest quarrel with him. “Papa did
not come, Étienne,” she cried, jumping up to meet him, “but Michelle
says it is nothing; men are often detained so. Come, sit here and tell
me what you have done, and how is my aunt; also, if you have that piece
of news you offered me yesterday.”

“Am I a thief and robber, then? A monster and a beast?” he asked,
sitting down beside her.

“No, you are not; it was yesterday you were those things, and this is
to-day.”

“Child!” he exclaimed, “but a woman-child for all. Alainette, would you
turn Protestant if your father were one?”

“There, now, you said we were done with that question.”

“It was you who urged it upon me, and who became angry with me because
I put you off.”

“Again that was yesterday, and this is to-day, as I told you.”

“Nevertheless, I put the question again.”

“Oh, I don’t know. What would you do if you were I, Étienne?”

“I should do as my conscience and my Church bade me, rather than obey
my father.” He looked at her again with those narrowed eyes, the
expression of which Alaine was beginning to dread.

“Thank you for your advice, sir. My father is not likely to command me
to do anything wrong; and even if he did----”

“Even if he did,” repeated her cousin, “you would be taken to a convent
and be separated from him, as you well know. There would be one way out
of it, Alaine.”

“And that?” She looked up at him with all the confidence of her youth
shining in her piquant little face.

“Would be to marry me,” he said, slowly.

The blood rushed to the girl’s face and she sprang to her feet. “How
dare you say such a thing, Étienne? It is for your mother and my father
to arrange a matter like that. Besides,”--she burst into a sob,--“I--I
don’t want to be married. I don’t want to go to a convent either. Why
do you come here troubling me with such dreadful things, Étienne? I
hate you for it.”

He caught her hands and looked down closely into her dark eyes. “No you
don’t; you love me for it.”

“I do not! I do not!” she cried, passionately. “I detest you. Monster,
beast! Monster, beast! Hear me, I say it again and again. I hate you,
hate you, hate you!” And having wrested one hand from his grasp, she
gave him a stinging blow on the ear.

He loosed his grasp of her and pushed her from him. “You shall pay me
for that,” he said, his breath coming quickly, as he sprang to his feet.

Alaine, frightened at what she had done, shrank from him. “I--I never
did so before, did I, Étienne? I--I was so surprised, you see.” She
made a faint attempt to smile, but there was no response from her
cousin. She remembered vaguely that she had once or twice before seen
him thus angry, and she also remembered that her aunt had told her that
Étienne was very vindictive. “It would not be proper for me to say that
I would marry you, Étienne,” she said, wistfully. “You know we must not
think of such things; Michelle says we must not, and Mother Angelique
says that it is very wrong. It really would not be proper for me to
tell you that I would marry you.”

“You shall tell no one else,” he said, fiercely, “and you will have to
do it soon or----”

“Or what?” She crept closer to him and laid her hand on his arm.

He looked down at her, the resentment in his face fading into something
like compassion. “Listen, Alaine; your father will not come back
to-day; one cannot say that he ever will. He has announced himself a
Huguenot, and has disappeared, we know not where.”

Alaine fixed her great eyes on him. Suddenly she dropped her childish
coaxing tone. “Are you telling me the truth, Étienne? I am--yes, I am
nearly a woman. A girl of fifteen has a right to decide for herself as
you say. Tell me, are you merely teasing me, or is this the truth?”

“It is the truth, and at any moment this place may be given over to the
dragonnades. Will you stay? If you do not come to us your case will be
pitiable, indeed. I have not said anything as yet to my mother, for you
know her state of health, but you will be safe with us, Alaine.”

“And Michelle, she must go too.”

“No, she must not. She is Protestant, and must take the risks with
those she has chosen.”

“Étienne! and after all these years that you have known her, and when
she has done you more than one good service.”

“We cannot remember anything but that she is an enemy of the Church.”

“You have said that if my father commanded I must not obey, therefore
I will learn his commands, if I can. You would not desire to marry a
Huguenot, Étienne.”

“That need not disturb you just now; the main thing is your safety.”

“And if I refuse to leave Michelle?”

“You know the consequences.”

“Do you think, then, that Father Bisset will not speak for me? Have I
ever neglected my religious duties? And the Mother Angelique, will she
not answer for me?”

“Once you go to them you will find closer bonds than those with which I
would bind you.”

“But they love me.”

“Because they love you they would keep you. It has been weeks since
you saw Mother Angelique, and as for Father Bisset, how long since you
have had a call from him? At this moment he is on his way to Holland,
unless, indeed, he has been overtaken, the poor miserable apostate.”

“How do you know? How do you know?”

“I am neither deaf nor blind. I see what is before me and I hear what
is told me.”

“It is the Revocation which is doing all this,” cried Alaine. “Michelle
told me so. Dear Father Bisset! Would he had told me he was going and
had given me his blessing before he fled! I hope he will escape in
safety.”

“I hope he will not,” returned Étienne, savagely.

Alaine turned and looked at him, then paced up and down the walk,
her hands folded against her breast, her eyes bent upon the ground.
Her brain was in a whirl, but by degrees she collected herself
sufficiently to say, “Étienne, my cousin, I am but a young and not
overwise girl, and I cannot decide this thing while you are here to
disconcert me. Leave me to-day, and do not come near me till I have
thought this over. You have thrust a hard alternative upon me, but I
see that I must meet it. I will believe that you intend the best for
me, but I must have time to think. To-morrow I will tell you what I
will do. It is good of you to allow me the privilege of choosing my own
way, for I can see that it might be otherwise; that, in the absence
of my father, you and my aunt have the right to exercise a control,
or that you might at once report me to the authorities, who would not
hesitate to send me whither they would. I am safe here, in my own home,
till to-morrow you think?”

“Yes, I am sure you are.”

“Then, leave me, please. Give my duty to my aunt and thank you,
Étienne.” She looked up into his face as if searching for something she
did not find. “Étienne, you forgive me for what I did yesterday? I was
very rude. You do not bear resentment against me for it?”

The look she dreaded came into his eyes. “Would I wish to marry you if
I did?” he returned, but without a smile.

She let him go, not adding another word; and when he was beyond
hearing she sank again upon the bench where they two had sat together.
Marriage with Étienne; she had never thought of it, and suddenly she
realized that her whole nature shrank from it. She dropped her face
in her hands, for a moment sitting very still, then, with a swift
determination, she ran to find her nurse.

“Michelle, Michelle,” she cried, taking the good woman’s comforting
arms and folding them around herself, “I am sorely pressed. Tell me
what to do. My father, did you know? he is Protestant. Étienne has just
told me of his admission, and that he has disappeared, he could not
tell where. Oh, Michelle, what shall I do? What shall I do? I am afraid
of Étienne, I am afraid.”

The mother look on Michelle’s broad face deepened into one of anxiety.
“My lamb! My lamb!” she murmured. “An hour of great distress is at
hand. Yes, I know. I have known for some time, but for your sake, my
pretty one, your father has not declared his convictions for fear you
would be stolen from him.”

“And now! Ah, Michelle!” She then told of her cousin Étienne’s proposal
and her own distress. “Ah, that I knew my father’s desires!” she cried.
“Shall I ever see him again? If I thought I could find him I would hie
me forth this very night.”

“And forsake all else?”

“Yes, yes.”

“You would be willing to become a refugee for his sake? You would give
up the protection and comfort you would find in your aunt’s home to
become a wanderer? You would give up your Church?”

“Yes, and more, if it gave me a chance to again be united to my father;
a thousand times yes. Those whom I love best upon earth, whom from
childhood I have been accustomed to obey, have become Protestants, why
should an ignorant girl dare to say they are not right? My father, you,
and Father Bisset, have you not all been my teachers and guardians?
Shall I forsake you now?”

“My infant! My child of the good heart!” cried Michelle, weeping
copiously. “I am the one to lead you forth from your own country, and I
cannot hesitate.” She thrust her hand under the kerchief folded across
her bosom and drew forth a paper. “Read,” she said, holding it out to
the girl.

“From my father!” cried Alaine. “What does he say?” She took the letter
and read rapidly. “He sees danger ahead; he does not know how it will
result. Some one has contrived to undermine him when he felt safe,
and he may have to make an effort to escape to England or to Holland.
Listen, Michelle: ‘Should my daughter desire to remain in France, or
should she declare herself unable to accept my belief, do not urge her,
but allow her to remain with her relations, and bear to her my love
and last blessing. But should she wish to join me in London, Christian
friends at the French church on Threadneedle Street will be able to
give her word of me if I succeed in making my escape. We can no longer,
my good Michelle, expect tolerance, now that the Edict of Nantes has
been revoked, and for your own sake I would advise you to leave the
country. But my little daughter, should you desert her, where will her
comfort be?’

“Ah, Michelle,” the tears rained down Alaine’s cheeks, “let us go. Take
me with you, dear Michelle. I shall not care to live without you and
papa. Take me; let us go.”

“My dear little one, have you thought well upon it? The way is full of
danger. Are you willing to share the lot of a poor Huguenot? Can you be
content in poverty and in a strange land?”

“Yes, yes, no matter what comes, I am willing to face it. Teach me my
father’s belief, Michelle, so that he may know that we are one in all
things.”

“We shall have to start before to-morrow dawns,” said Michelle, after a
moment’s thought.

“So much the better, for I promised my cousin that he should have my
answer to-morrow. He will find it here. We must not let the servants
know. We will say that we go to the city to join my father.”

“Say nothing, but come to my room after dark this night. I have thought
of little else this day. I was up betimes, for the letter came to me by
the hand of a friend last night, and I did but wait for a proper time
to reveal its contents to you. Your father foresaw this days ago. He
told me where I should find money. I have sewed it into the hem of my
petticoat. You will be disguised as a boy. I have the clothes ready.”

“Where did you get them?”

“From my sister. They belonged to her son. We will set out before dawn
and carry eggs to market.”

“We will stand in no danger of being intercepted?”

“I think not. Go now, my pretty one, and try to be as like yourself as
possible. In these days one does not know who may be friend or foe. I
have prepared a chest, which I shall send out during the day by one of
my own faith. He will carry it safely to Dieppe for us, and we shall
not need to leave all behind.”

“Poor little Fifi, I shall have to leave him. Jean will be good to him
I hope.” She turned away sadly as a realizing sense of what she must
forsake came over her.

It was a long, weary day for the girl, who occupied herself feverishly
in such ways as would seem most usual to the servants. “Never again
will I see my home,” she said over and over again. Over an unknown
way to an unknown land, the thought would now and again terrify her,
but her heart leaped as she thought of her father, and more than once
Michelle heard her clear young voice singing an old madrigal. “Child of
the good heart,” she would sigh, “she little knows of what is before
her. It is but the strange journey to a strange land of which she
thinks, the poor little one.”

The house was very still when Alaine crept from her room and presented
herself before the door of Michelle’s chamber. The housekeeper’s room
was not far from her own, for Michelle was something more than servant
and scarcely less than one of the family. “Are you ready, Michelle?”
came Alaine’s whisper.

The door opened cautiously and she went in. “Can I help you?” she
asked. “We are to be comrades from now henceforth, Michelle; let us
not stand upon ceremony,” she added, sweetly, as she saw her companion
hesitated to ask a service.

“If you will help me, dear child, to roll my Bible into my hair. I must
carry it so lest it be discovered. It will not show?”

“Not at all.” Alaine viewed the arrangement critically. “What have I to
do?”

“First I must crop your abundance of brown locks. A boy has not such a
crop of hair.” And she relentlessly clipped the shining tresses, which
slipped to the ground in soft coils. Alaine laughed to see herself, at
last, clad in the blouse of a peasant lad, a cap set upon her short
curls, her slender hands stained and even scratched. “They will then
look more in keeping with my character,” the girl said, gayly.

Then out into the night they slipped; Michelle with basket on arm,
Alaine with one hand inside her blouse clasping tightly the small Beza
psalm-book; from henceforth it would mean more than a family relic. One
last look at the gray walls of her home looming up darkly against the
starry sky, and Alaine whispered, “Forever! forever!” then she followed
Michelle down the dusty road to where Rouen lay sleeping by the river
Seine.

The streets of the city when the fugitives reached it were full of
armed men, who rode about the town changing place as soon as they had
compelled those upon whom they were quartered to sign their act of
conformation. They seemed to be everywhere, and Alaine shrank closer to
Michelle as she noted the haughty, overbearing look of the soldiers.
“Be of good heart, little one,” Michelle whispered. “Remember you are
no longer Alaine Hervieu, but Jacques Assire, my son, and we live in
the direction of Dieppe; we return to our home when we have sold our
eggs. Name of Grace! but one sees a woebegone set of countenances here;
it is pitiful indeed. We have escaped none too soon; the dragonnades
are in full force, as you see, and if we would not be witnesses to
worse sights than the driving forth of women and children into the
streets we will not tarry long. It is early yet, but none too early for
our purpose.”

And, indeed, Michelle had hardly exchanged her eggs for some of the
homely commodities which a peasant might be supposed to buy, when
issuing from a shop across the narrow street Alaine caught sight of her
cousin Étienne. “Michelle, Michelle, do not look; my cousin is there on
the other side,” the girl said, in a shrill whisper.

Michelle needed no second warning, but, proving equal to the occasion,
re-entered the shop, where she was well known, and where she held
a brief consultation with the shopkeeper, which resulted in the
conducting of the two through a back way into one of the riverside
streets, where numerous inns and drinking-places stood to the right
and left. Here sailors rolled jauntily along, and here wonderful old
houses, each story overlapping the one below, loomed up over the
heads of the passers-by. A few steps away was the Rue Harenguerie,
and here in the midst of the cries and chatterings of the fish-wives
it was easy to lose one’s self. Across on the opposite bank was the
favorite promenade of the ladies of the town. Alaine had often been
there with her aunt among the careless pleasure-seekers, but now she
watched anxiously the stolid countenance of Michelle, who elbowed her
way through the market, and at last stopped upon its outskirts, where,
after some chaffering with a sharp-eyed man, she appeared satisfied,
and turned with a smile to her charge.

“Here we go,” she said. “Yonder is the cart which will take us in the
direction of Dieppe; but, alas! my little one, you have been looked
upon too suspiciously; yours is no peasant face, and despite your dress
you may be detected, for I gather enough to know that it is going to be
no easy task to get away safely. However, if you can be content with
a bed of cabbages and a coverlet of carrots you shall be transported
without harm. As for me, I am weather-beaten enough to pass easily, yet
we must wait till evening before we start. Meantime, under yonder cart
is your refuge, and I will stay here pretending to sell fish.”

In the dimness of twilight Alaine was established uncomfortably enough
on her bed of cabbages, and over her were lightly piled some overturned
baskets which were to hide her from view. She could breathe easily
and could move slightly, but the journey was long, and more than once
there were moments of terror when the cart was stopped and the driver
questioned. Michelle, however, was always equal to the occasion, and
by daybreak the small fishing village toward which their faces were
set was in sight, and by high noon the refugees were on their way to
England.




CHAPTER II

THE FEAST OF THE FAT CALF


In the little village of New Rochelle there was a great jollification
on a day in June which marks the feast of John the Baptist. From one
of the houses erected on the side of the high street could be heard a
voice singing clearly the Huguenot battle psalm,--

  “Oh, Lord, thou didst us clean forsake
   And scatter all abroad,”--

and from a doorway a girl’s face peeped out. “They are making ready,
Mère Michelle,” she cried, stopping her song. “Hurry with the loaves,
I see Gerard coming now; the men are gathering from every direction.
Hola, Gerard, is it a very fat calf?” she cried to the young man, who
waved his cap to her as he approached.

“A lusty young creature, indeed,” he replied, as he came near. “Are the
loaves ready?”

“Mère Michelle is but now placing them in the baskets. It will be a
fine day for the feast, Gerard. Some one said there were new-comers in
the village to swell the crowd.”

“So there are, and to share the feast. The number increases. Hasten,
good mother,” he cried, and from the inside room from which issued
odors of newly baked bread came Michelle, her honest face wreathed in
smiles. “Papa has been hurrying me this half-hour, as if one would take
underdone bread from the oven. Yet I see the occasion approaches; the
procession is forming.”

“And I must be there. You will soon be ready, you and Alaine. I shall
see you with the others.” And he went off bearing his two baskets of
fresh loaves.

Mère Michelle settled her cap. Alaine gave a glance at herself in the
tiny mirror, smoothed down her black silk gown, and tucked a stray lock
behind her ear. “Will I do, Mère Michelle?” she asked.

Michelle looked at her critically. “Your silver chain, my dear; a maid
needs a bit of ornament. But hasten, for I hear sounds of shouting and
singing coming nearer and nearer.”

Alaine clambered up the ladder which led to her little loft chamber,
and speedily returned decked out with her silver chain. She caught
Michelle’s hand and hurried her along. The clumsy latch of the door
clicked behind them and they stepped out into the glory of the June
weather.

Up the little street the procession trooped: a fat calf well garlanded
was being led along amid cheers and voluble chatterings. This was the
yearly fee to John Pell, lord of the manor of Pelham, in return for
having conveyed to Jacob Leisler six thousand acres of land on which
was built the village of New Rochelle. The merry crowd was every
few steps augmented by new participants, who joined it as it passed
along, and all trooped towards the place of presentation. A great
ceremony this, a feast always following the acceptance of the calf,
and the sober Huguenots became for the occasion lively Frenchmen. The
appearance of the huge joints and stacks of fowls and venison piled up
before them served as an assurance that even here in this wild country
one might still enjoy an occasional fête-day.

“La, la!” cried Mère Michelle, “it does my eyes good, my friend, to see
such an indulgence of mirth; it was not so a couple of years ago, eh,
Alainette?”

“Where is Papa Louis?” said Alaine, her soft eyes taking in the scene,
“Ah, here he is, and here comes Gerard bringing a stranger.”

“Be wary of strangers,” was Michelle’s warning.

But it did not take Michelle’s words to teach Alaine discretion; she
had learned her lesson well in these two years; moreover, she did not
quite like the crafty expression in the eyes of the young man who bowed
before her.

“’Tis good to hear one’s own tongue spoken without hesitation,” said
the stranger. “I am come up from New York, where I hear little except
a vile Dutch tongue and that brain-splitting English. One finds great
relief in this gay company, as much from the merry occasion as from the
association. Your brother was good enough to accede to my request to
present me. He is your brother, is he not?”

“The son of my mother’s husband,” returned Alaine, sedately. “He is my
step-brother.”

“Ah! and yonder rosy-faced good wife is your mother? You do not
resemble her, mademoiselle.”

“I resemble my own father,” replied Alaine, steadily.

“And from what part of France are you? Madame Mercier should be from
Normandy. I am at home there. I was born in Rouen.”

“Yes?” Alaine tried to look indifferent, but her eyes were taking in
every detail. She had a dim consciousness of having seen this face
before. “I was not born there,” she added. “The Merciers are not from
there, and in these days, monsieur, one’s birthplace is of less account
than that place where he will meet his death.”

“Yes, yes; quite true, when one is in a wild and savage country. M.
Mercier, is it he standing yonder by his son? The son has overtopped
his father by many inches.”

“That is M. Mercier. But listen, some one is starting up a song of
praise, and I see my brother comes for me.”

“I say but _au revoir_, mademoiselle.”

Alaine made a slight inclination of her head. She did not like the
confident tone. “Gerard,” she whispered as he led her away, “who is the
man? He is too inquisitive for my liking. He does not sing, either.
I hope he is not some evil, prying creature. I told him but little,
whatever he may have desired to know.”

“What did you tell him?” asked Gerard.

“I said only that you were my step-father’s son and that I was not born
in Rouen.”

Gerard laughed. “Discreet little Alainette. Come and tell Papa Louis;
it will amuse him. Do you know it is over two years, Alaine, since we
left England, and more than a year since we came away from Martinique?”

“Those long journeys, how I remember them with horror, Gerard! Two
years ago I was Alaine Hervieu and you were Gerard Legrand; to-day we
are both children of the same parents and of the name of Mercier.”

“Than whom no better parents exist. For our sakes, Alaine, what have
they not done?”

“So, my children, what gives you so grave an aspect?” inquired Papa
Louis, as they approached the spot where he and his wife were waiting
for them that they might continue their homeward way.

“We were talking of you, Papa Louis,” retorted Alaine, with a flash of
mischief in her eyes.

“And so you were grave,” he laughed. “Enough, indeed, am I for gravity,
as Michelle says when I tramp with muddied feet upon her clean floor,
or when I do not praise her cooking in fine enough terms. The good
Michelle, to stand a mulish husband who is so obstinate not to see the
virtue of neatness. A year and more married and no improvement; no
wonder you are serious, Alaine.”

“My life, but you invent mockeries, Louis,” said Michelle. “Who was the
young man to whom you were talking, my daughter?”

“M. Dupont, from Rouen,” she returned, calmly.

Michelle started. “And you told him--what?”

“I told him nothing save that you were my mother, Papa Louis your
husband, Gerard my brother by marriage. Was not that enough?”

“Enough, and not too much,” said Papa Louis, patting her hand. “Where
did you meet him, Gerard?”

“He came up with some visitors from Manhatte.”

“He remains for some time?”

“But so long as it suits him.”

“He must not meet you again, Alaine.” Michelle spoke with anxious
voice. “Avoid him. He may have recognized you as it is, for he is a
friend of your cousin Étienne’s.”

“And what of that? I am far removed from my cousin Étienne, and beyond
his anger, thanks to you, good mother.”

“You cannot be sure of that.”

“Ah, foolish one,” said Papa Louis, “how can he reach her here in a
free country? You are right, Alaine; you need not fear.”

“I do not.” She threw back her head with a movement expressive of her
feeling of unchecked action. “I fear no one now.”

“But you will not tell him your name,” Michelle urged, still anxious.
“Do me so small a favor as this, Alaine.”

“I have already told him I am Alaine Mercier, and I shall not likely
meet him again.”

“Yet promise me.”

“If it please you, yes, I promise. Now, Papa Louis, why do you not make
Gerard promise the same thing on his part?”

Papa Louis rubbed his hands together and chuckled. He was a little man,
with an eager, gentle face. He stooped slightly and had the air of a
student rather than of a peasant or a mechanic. Gerard towered far
above him.

“Papa Louis and I have nothing to lose,” said the young man. “Those
from whom all has been taken have nothing to conceal. Every one knows
our story.”

“Still,” said the cautious Michelle, “I would not be too free to tell
it.”

“Maman has not yet lost her fear of the dragonnades,” remarked Papa
Louis. “She cannot quite grasp the fact that we are utterly safe, and
wakes up with a dread of having insolent soldiers quartered upon her
before night.”

“Which is not true,” maintained Michelle, sturdily; “but, Louis, I know
too much not to feel that the long arm of resentment can stretch across
seas.”

Papa Louis raised his hands. “She speaks well, this wife of mine. She
has acquired a glibness of speech which is truly remarkable.”

“That comes from association with you, Papa Louis,” laughed Alaine,
taking his arm. “Let us be going. Mère Michelle’s bread has disappeared
like dew before the sun; we shall get no more though we stay here all
night. Take maman with you, Gerard, and Papa Louis and I will follow. I
think we should celebrate the day, too,” she said to M. Mercier, “for
it is due to that same accomplishment of making such excellent bread
that we are here to-day.”

“True, my daughter,” returned her companion. “See, we will deck maman.”
And picking up a discarded wreath from the ground, he ran forward and
flung it around his wife’s neck.

“Am I, then, a fat calf?” spluttered Michelle, indignant at this
assault upon her dignity.

“No, no, maman, you are honored because of your able pursuance of a
craft which brought us here,” said Alaine, kissing her. “Let me see, we
will rehearse it all as we walk along, that you may understand why Papa
Louis, in a burst of gratitude, has so decorated you. We met two years
ago on shipboard. We remember it, do we not, Gerard? You with your
tutor, Papa Louis there, and I with my foster-mother, Mère Michelle.
You were dressed as a girl, and in your petticoats, as well as in Mère
Michelle’s, were sewed some gold pieces, while in my blouse I carried
my book of psalms, and Papa Louis carried the leaves of his Bible
stitched in his coat. We became friends when you believed me a boy
and I believed you a girl. How astonished we were when we discovered
that we might well exchange places, and how soon those gold pieces
melted away in England! and in Martinique, what distress we endured!
so hungry and forlorn were we. Then did maman happily think of baking
bread and selling it. A good trade it was and one that satisfied our
own hunger, for we could eat the stale loaves. And when Papa Louis fell
ill did Mère Michelle nurse him while you and I watched the loaves in
the oven. You would tell me of your home in La Rochelle, and of your
escape after your father and mother were dragged away, and I would
relate of our weary watching for my father, of whom not a word could we
learn in London. Then--be patient, maman, we are coming to the end of
the story--because there was still not freedom for us in Martinique,
said Papa Louis, ‘Had I but the money for the passage we would go to
New England,’ and that day you, Mère Michelle, found a gold coin where
it had slipped into a seam of your petticoat, and not long after papa
remembered a jewel which he still retained for Gerard. Then said he,
‘When we can earn enough we will go as a family, my good Michelle,
if you will. These are our children, Alaine and Gerard Mercier, and
you are Madame Mercier if you consent, for we have been comrades in
misfortune this year past, and my life, which your nursing has saved,
is yours.’ Was it not so, maman? So now, because of the happy thought
of the bread which did sustain us all, and because of your industry in
baking and selling the good bread which all were so eager to buy, we at
last managed to save enough to bring us here, and we are one family.
So, now, to-day, on which they celebrate the feast of John Baptist, at
home in dear France, and here does honor to the fat calf, we will also
have a feast of the loaves, and you shall always be crowned queen of
the feast. Shall it not be so, Papa Louis? Shall it not, Gerard?”

The recital of the tale and the honor bestowed upon her so overcame
Mère Michelle that her dignity lost itself in tears, and she fell on
the neck of her little husband, who braced himself to receive her
weight, and patted her comfortingly on the back, while Alaine and
Gerard started up a joyful psalm, then ran on ahead down the woodland
path towards the village, saying they would prepare a reception at home.

The sound of merry voices had not ceased in the direction of the
place of the feast. The occasion was one not only for the expression
of ordinary joy, but it served to voice a deeper note, that of
thanksgiving for an escape from persecution, and to the rollicking
songs were added psalms of praise, those psalms so long denied
utterance to the patient band of Huguenots now setting up their homes
in this new world.

The woods sweetly smelling in the June weather, the soft odors arising
from the sea-salt marshes, the glimpses of the blue sound, the peeping
up here and there of unfamiliar blossoms beneath their feet, all these
things awoke in the hearts of Alaine and Gerard a strange new feeling
of unfettered joyousness, and in sheer good fellowship Gerard reached
out a hand to clasp the girl’s as they walked home. “You look very
happy, my sister,” he said. “Not since we left England’s shores have I
seen you so.”

“It is good to live,” Alaine answered, raising her face to the sky. “To
be young and free and hopeful is much. On days like this, Gerard, I
always believe that I shall see my father again. Do you feel so?”

“No, I do not. Papa Louis has always warned me against an encouragement
of hope in that direction. He thinks there is no doubt but that my
father and mother are with the good God.”

“So he tells me, but Mère Michelle says that it is possible that my
father may have become an engagé; that thought is to me more terrible
than the other, for if he is with the good God he is at peace, but
otherwise he is suffering misery at the hands of masters. And oh,
Gerard, you have told me how you saw those miserable ones tied two and
two, walking in procession like criminals, or wretchedly bound in a
cart. Ah, me, to be sold into slavery, yes, that is worse than death
for a Huguenot. We saw at Martinique many of those unfortunates, and
the thought that my father may be one such as those is too dreadful to
endure. No, I myself am readier to believe that he is somewhere in
hiding, and that he will yet discover us. So many escaped to Holland
who eventually have reached England, and our friends of the church in
London are aware of our arrival here, therefore I take the hope to my
heart that my father and I may yet meet. Meanwhile, I am willing to
work hard in gratitude to those dear parents of our adoption.”

“And I, too, Alaine. We must do our share for their sakes, for they
have spared no pains to help us. Papa Louis has never been strong since
that dreadful fever on the island, and besides, a man who has spent his
days poring over books, what is he to till the ground or to work at the
looms?”

“You grow so tall and strong, Gerard, I think you look a man already.
I, too, grow strong and hardy in this good salt air. I trust I may grow
in grace likewise,” she added, piously. “I cared not once much about
that, Gerard, but these sore trials have sobered me.” Then her fresh
young voice took up the psalm,--

  “Sus, sus, mon ame, il te faut dire bien
   De l’Eternal: ô mon vrai Dieu, combien
   Ta grandeur est excellent et notoire!”

Gerard joined in, and hand in hand they continued their way through the
woods and up the path to their home, Papa Louis and Michelle following,
the latter still garlanded.

Gerard and Alaine fled laughing to the little loft chamber, and
presently down came a lad in a blouse too small for the expanding
figure, and following, a girl in very short petticoat and coarse
chemise.

“La, la!” cried Michelle. “Here they are, the bad ones. Look, papa,
did you ever know such mischiefs? They have grown, in truth, these two
years. Such short petticoats, Gerard, and your blouse, Alaine, is far
too small; you can scarce meet it. Another year and you cannot wear the
garments, my children. Put them away and keep them as a reminder that
the grace of God has lent you the name of Mercier.”

A knock at the door silenced their laughter. Alaine shrank behind
Michelle’s broad back, and Gerard, looking rather foolish in his
short petticoat, retreated into a corner. Papa Louis opened the door
to welcome a neighbor, M. Therolde. Behind him came the stranger
whom Alaine had met at the fête. “A little frolic to end the day’s
entertainment,” said Papa Louis. “My children are attired for our
amusement. You will excuse their costumes, gentlemen. Come forward,
Gerard; your petticoats are none too short that they need stand in the
way of a greeting to our friends. And you, my daughter, need not mind
masquerading in your brother’s clothes upon a fête-day.”

“We but stopped to give you thanks for the acceptable addition to
our feast, Madame Mercier,” said Jacob Therolde. “Truly, madame
distinguishes herself in the baking of excellent bread. Not a fragment
was left; the good wives even saved the crusts, nor would let the dogs
have them. You have changed places, eh, my children? Come, M. Dupont,
we are promised at home.”

“It was an ill-timed call,” complained Michelle, when the guests had
departed. “I saw that young man view you with all too familiar eyes,
Alaine. I wish he might never be seen here again. I do not like him,
nor ever did.”

“There, maman, there,” began Papa Louis, “do not discompose yourself;
we must be merry to-night. Your little bird will not hop so far out of
your sight that she will be snared. A beaker of wine will we drink in
health to us all, and then Gerard and I must see to our chores, for it
is later than it would seem; the long day was over an hour ago.”




CHAPTER III

THE WAY TO CHURCH


“It is a long walk, my child,” Papa Louis was saying; “you should not
think of taking it.”

“But try me, papa,” Alaine persisted, “and if I tire myself there
may be cars to take me in. Is it not so, Mother Michelle? Surely the
Bonneaux or the Allaires or the Sicards are no stronger than I; and
even if there be no room, or no cars going in the morning, I can walk.”

“She must have her will at all times, the little one,” Papa Louis said,
with a sigh of resignation. “See you, then, Gerard, that maman does not
over-fatigue herself, and so you will go ahead, Michelle, and we follow
in the morning. We shall needs be up by break of day, Alaine.”

Already the sound of the low-wheeled wagons could be heard rumbling
down the one street of the town; these “cars” with their canvas tops,
their deep felloes and turned spokes, were thoroughly French in
appearance; they were filled with women and children, only the very
little ones being left at home with some care-taker. By the side of the
wagons walked the men in sabots, and carrying their shoes and stockings
in their hands. Each man was well armed, for the way through the deep
forests was full of possible dangers. Upon the soft silence of the
summer evening arose the plaintive strains of a hymn. The march to
church had begun, although it was still Saturday evening. “O Lord, Thou
didst us clean forsake,” chimed in the voices of Gerard and Michelle as
they, too, joined the company, dressed in their Sunday clothes, a touch
of color giving evidence of the fact that, sober and earnest as were
these people, they were still truly French.

Down the street the troop went, their hymn, which they invariably sang
upon starting, echoing along the way. They were always singing, these
Huguenots, as if they could never make up for those days when their
psalms were denied them. Alaine watched till the last figure became
hidden by the trees, then she turned to say, “The poor little cow, it
would scarce be right to leave her, and you well know, Papa Louis, that
I would be wretched to know you were here alone. I do not mind the long
walk nor the early start, and by morning I hope our Petite Etoile will
have regained her health; she would be a sore loss.”

Papa Louis looked grave. It had been a struggle to acquire even the
little they had, though it was of the plainest. Theirs was a long,
low-pitched house, with a big living-room below and two loft chambers
above. In the former could be seen two beds with blue linen curtains, a
couple of chests, a small table octagonal in form, a little mirror in
gilded frame. By the huge fireplace hung the warming-pan, and there
was a brass candlestick upon the shelf above it. A gun and powder-horn
were hung within easy reach of Papa Louis’s arm. In the fireplace swung
two iron pots on long cranes, and at the side hung a bright kettle. Two
spinning-wheels, of course, held their places, but now their drowsy
hum was hushed, for Alaine, stepping briskly back and forth, prepared
the supper. From time to time she looked out of the open door toward
the barn just beyond the garden, now brave in summer blossoms. The
pretty young cow had been joyously welcomed, and now a wicked wolf had
torn her sleek skin so that Papa Louis must needs doctor her. “He is
so skilful, that Papa Louis,” said Alaine to herself, pausing, wooden
tankard in hand; “he knows herbs and simples well; his book knowledge
has served him more than once, the dear little papa. And how he loved
his garden! It is well that Gerard has a strong arm for the furrows,
else the corn would not look as well as the flowers. Mère Michelle can
guide a plough and handle a scythe better than her husband. How we
laughed, Gerard and I, when she first taught papa to follow the plough!
the poor little papa, he was so determined and so patient, while big
Mère Michelle scolded and encouraged and laughed.” She took her tankard
out to the well, which stood in front of the door. Guiding the long
sweep till the bucket touched the clear water below, she waited till
it filled and then drew it up, balanced it on the curb, and poured
the water into the trough. At this instant Papa Louis appeared leading
the cow. “Good!” cried Alaine. “He brings her for a drink, poor pretty
Etoile. It was fortunate that she was not far off when Gerard heard her
cry, else she would have fed the wicked wolf ere now.” Over the orderly
rows of vegetables she looked to see Papa Louis advance.

“We shall have no milk to-night,” he told her, “yet she becomes better,
and I think to-morrow will see her safe, so we can start betimes.”

Alaine with gentle hand stroked the soft ears of the cow, which eagerly
drank from the trough and was led back to the barn; then the girl
filled her tankard and bore it indoors.

“I must go to see Alexandre Allaire,” said Papa Louis when the simple
meal was over. “I shall have to leave you alone here for a short time,
my daughter, but there is nothing to fear. I greatly desire to know
where we stand in the matter of a new church; a deep longing for it
takes possession of us all, and I trust the day is not distant when we
can rear the walls of a new temple here in the wilderness.”

By the time he had disappeared behind the leafy trees just beyond the
newly set out orchard Alaine had cleared away the supper dishes and
ran out for a last look at her fowls. They must be well secured, and
there was no Michelle there to spy out a possible loophole where wild
creatures could make an entrance. Assuring herself that all was safe,
she returned to the house. As she entered the sitting-room, by the dim
light she saw sitting a figure bending over the little table.

“Ah, mademoiselle, I am indeed fortunate,” said François Dupont, who
put down the book he had been holding and advanced to meet her. “I
feared you might have gone with the others upon the long journey to
Manhatte, yet I did not see you among the train as they passed, and,
therefore, I ventured here in hopes of finding you.”

Alaine retreated a step. What ill fate had given her an interview with
this man whom she had hoped never to see again?

“And I was fortunate,” he repeated, “Mademoiselle--Hervieu.”

Alaine started, but recovered herself to say, steadily, “My father, M.
Louis Mercier, will be here in a moment to welcome you, monsieur. I
regret that Madame Mercier, my mother, is not here to entertain you.”

M. Dupont looked at her with a half-smile curling his lips. “All of
which sounds very well, mademoiselle, but does not alter the fact that
Mademoiselle Hervieu, herself, does not seem over-glad to meet an old
acquaintance.”

“An old acquaintance? An exceedingly short acquaintance. It was at the
Feast of the Fat Calf that I met you, and since then not at all.”

“But that was not our first meeting: I remember a charming child who
visited her aunt one day, when I was also there, and to whom I offered
some cherries which I had gathered; I snatched them from her before she
had a taste of them, and I remember how I chased the little maid around
the garden and made her give me a taste of her cherry lips in exchange
for the fruit. I have not forgotten the pretty little incident,
Mademoiselle Hervieu, although it was some years ago, and you were but
a gay and happy child.”

Alaine stood silent, but there was fierce anger in her eyes. He dared
remind her now. She looked helplessly from one side to the other, then
she lifted her chin with a haughty gesture. “Monsieur, your imagination
quite exceeds your memory. I declare to you that I have not the honor
of your acquaintance.”

He laughed mockingly. “She has very much the air of a peasant, this
child of the good honest Michelle of the bourgeois face. Strange how
she resembles her mother.” He glanced at the girl’s slim hands and
feet, and his eyes travelled back to the well-set little head and the
fine oval of the fair face. “So closely does she resemble her mother
that I can well imagine how she will look some twenty-five years from
now.” He laughed again. “We of the upper class do not mind amusing
ourselves with a peasant lass, mademoiselle, and so you cannot be
surprised if I steal a second kiss, since you repudiate the one you
gave me six or eight years ago.” He made a step toward her, and Alaine
shrank back with a little cry. “Monsieur,” she said, in a low, strained
voice, “what is your motive in all this?”

“Ah-h! she comes to herself; the peasant lass is no more; she was too
much for Mademoiselle Hervieu. I but desire to press my claim to your
acquaintance, and to urge you to return to the home which is still open
to you; to say that, as the friend of your cousin, Étienne Villeneau,
I desire to do him the favor of returning the lady of his love to his
arms. I had an opportunity of looking into the small black book on
yonder table, the book which contains those hymns you Huguenots are
so fond of singing at all times and in all places. I am too familiar
with the Hervieu arms not to recognize the plate on the inside lid of
the book, and the haunting face of the demoiselle whom I met at the
fête was no longer that of a stranger. I understand why it seemed so
familiar; in the flash of an eye I recollected the little scene which I
have just recounted to you. That you were not better known to me is due
to the fact that for some years past I have been in Paris to complete
my studies.” Alaine listened gravely, making no comment. He waved his
hand to a chair. “May we not sit, mademoiselle? I have more to say. I
would not keep you standing.”

She bit her lip, but seated herself and regarded him silently.

“Étienne Villeneau is my friend; we were together at school in Rouen.
Always Étienne spoke of his little cousin, his sweetheart, as he
called her. Judge of my surprise and distress when, upon my return
home some two years ago, I was told that this same pretty child whom
I so well remembered had been stolen by her foster-mother and had
disappeared, no one knew where. Étienne was in despair; he sent his
emissaries to search high and low, but to no avail. When he knew I
was to depart for these colonies he gave me as a parting charge, ‘My
cousin, François, forget her not when you are in the land of the
savage, and if chance be that you come across any who know of her,
press home the discovery, so will you be my heart’s best friend.’ I
find you here. I see you in this humble cot, performing with your
own hands tasks that your servants at home should be doing for you,
and, therefore, mademoiselle, not only in pity for my friend, but in
sympathy for you, I beg of you to return to your native country.”

“Monsieur,” Alaine’s voice was low and determined, “you forget that I
am a Huguenot.”

He snapped his fingers with an upward movement of them as he would say,
“So slight a matter?” “That is easily adjusted, mademoiselle. Because
you, as a child, were over-persuaded by your nurse is no reason why, as
a woman, you should not revoke your opinions.”

“My father is also Protestant,” said Alaine, her dark eyes growing
larger and more intense.

“Your father, M. Hervieu? And where is he?”

“I know not, but this I know: for his sake, if not for my own
conviction, would I forswear the country which, if it has not witnessed
his death, has condemned him to a life of misery. Dearly as I loved my
own France, I am more Huguenot than French. Revoke my decision? Abjure
my belief? Never! Day by day and hour by hour it becomes more and more
dear to me in this free home. Listen, monsieur: to-morrow morning I
start at break of day to walk over twenty miles to church. I shall do
it gladly, joyfully, for it brings me to a service which is my delight.
Would I do this if I could be turned by your chance words? My home is
humble, yes, but here we are free to sing our psalms, to worship as we
desire. I toil with my hands; I labor in the fields that I may help to
pay for this piece of land which we call ours. I would work a thousand
times harder for those who cherish me and who have given me their
honest, honorable name that I may be safe from those who hunt me down
and who seek to do me despite. Leave these, my dear adopted parents?
Never, till my father himself returns to claim me.”

M. Dupont listened thoughtfully. “You would leave only at your father’s
command? It behooves me, then, to find him.”

Alaine clasped her hands. “Oh, monsieur, find him, find him, and I will
bless you forever, though you may be my enemy!”

“Your enemy?” He shrugged his shoulders; then looking at her with
an inexplicable smile, he said, “Consider me yours to command,
mademoiselle. We shall meet again, fair Alaine Hervieu, and I shall yet
bid you good-morrow under the skies of France.” He lifted the heavy
wooden latch of the door and bowed himself out, leaving Alaine stunned
and bewildered.

In the dimness of the room Papa Louis did not perceive the expression
on the girl’s face as he entered and gayly cried, “The wolves have not
devoured my little bird, I see.”

Alaine flew toward him and clasped his arm. “Oh, papa, papa, there has
been some one here!” And she poured forth her tale, one moment the
passionate tears falling, and the next a tremor born of fear creeping
into her voice.

Papa Louis listened silently until she had concluded, then he said,
“But this young man, he is Protestant; he is a friend of Jacob
Therolde’s. I have been speaking but now of him to Alexandre Allaire.
He has talked to one and another, and no one seems to imagine evil of
him. This is a puzzle, my daughter. I am dismayed by the strangeness of
it. Ma petite, he did but tease you, perhaps; yes, that is it, he did
not mean it when he urged your return to France; he would find out how
steadfast you really are, that is all.”

“No, no, I am sure it was not that; yet----” She paused and considered
the matter. “He did not say that he was not Protestant, he but spoke as
if it were nothing to change one’s religion as favors come one’s way.
If he is not Protestant, why is he here among us, so far from home? and
what means his ardent friendship for my cousin? I am terrified by it
all, papa.”

“But you need have no fear. Who shall take you from us? Not one man,
nor two. So go to sleep, my little one; the good God will defend you.
Say your prayers to Him and sleep well, for we have a long walk before
us and must start betimes. I hope before long that it will be but a
step to our own temple of worship. Mark how sweet is the air and how
quiet the night. God be thanked for our peace. Embrace me, little one,
and good-night.”

Alaine crept up the ladder to her room above. Why, after all, should
she fear? There were papa and Gerard and all the good friends and
neighbors to defend her. What could one man do? and why should he
desire to harm her? And she went to sleep with a prayer upon her lips.

It required an early start, indeed, to reach New York in time for the
service. Alaine put up a frugal lunch, and with others, who had not
gone the evening before, they started forth, the men armed, for who
knew what lurking foe might not come upon them in the lonely woods.
Singing they went: those old songs of Marot’s and of Beza’s so dear to
the Huguenot heart. To-day the talk was serious. Fierce and fiercer
had grown the conflict between Romanists and Protestants. James II.
of England had been compelled to abdicate; France had declared war
against England; a Committee of Safety had intrusted Jacob Leisler with
the command of the fort in New York, and to him the eyes of the people
were turned. Would the French descend and threaten New York? Would the
Indians join them and there be worse to be expected?

“Ah, la la,” sighed Alaine, as she stepped briskly along by the side of
Papa Louis, “I see you are anxious to discuss the latest news with M.
Sicard. Leave me to trudge along with the younger lads and go you, good
papa, to those ahead.”

He looked at her with a smile. “So ready to be rid of papa? However,
I do wish to discuss these matters, and I will send back to you some
one who has been casting longing looks this way ever since we started.
Approach, Pierre, and defend my daughter from any naughty enemy who may
descend upon us,” he cried to one of the young men striding along in
his clumping sabots and with gun in hand.

A smile lighted up the grave face of the youth. “Papa Louis is always
a good companion,” he returned; “I fear mademoiselle will lose by the
exchange.”

“Variety, my dear boy, variety; we need it. Pray, how would taste one’s
pot à feu if but one ingredient composed it? A little of this, a little
of that, and we have a dish fit for a king. So with life, my good
Pierre; one needs a mixture. I leave you to help to a good flavor my
daughter’s pottage to-day. Be not onion to make her weep, nor pepper
to cause her anger.” And, laughing, Papa Louis gayly stepped ahead, and
Pierre fell into a pace to match Alaine’s.

“You undertake a long walk,” Pierre said, after a moment’s silence.

“Yes, but you know our cow was hurt, and ’twas not safe to leave her
last night, so I stayed behind to keep Papa Louis company, although
Gerard begged to do so. But papa would not hear of Mère Michelle’s
going alone, and thus it settled itself. I have long wanted to take
this journey. I am young and strong, and why not? Mère Michelle, active
as she is, could not well stand it, but I am sure I can.” She paused
and looked at her tall companion, who, always grave, to-day seemed more
so than usual. “I wanted to tell you, Pierre,” she began again, “that I
do not trust that M. Dupont who was in our village yesterday, and also
upon the day of the fête. He claims affiliation with us, but I believe
he is a Papist.”

“Even so, there are some good Papists,” returned Pierre, quietly.

Alaine gave a little scream of protest. “You to say so, Pierre! You who
began your life in the midst of horrors and who have suffered the loss
of all nearest to you?”

He gave her one of his rare smiles. “Do you remember what the good
Beza said in reply to the king of Navarre? ‘Sire, it belongs in truth
to the Church of God, in whose name I speak, to endure blows and not
inflict them. But it will also please your Majesty to remember that she
is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.’”

Alaine nodded. “I remember the couplet which Papa Louis taught me,--

  ‘Plus a me frapper on s’amuse,
   Tant plus de marteau on y use.’

But to tell you the truth, Pierre, I am not a patient being. I am full
of indignation many times a day, and I wonder if I will ever be called
a patient Huguenot. That anvil, it is because of Beza’s words that we
have it for an emblem, is it not so? I like better the marigold myself.”

“And I like the anvil,” returned Pierre.

Alaine gave him a half-saucy look from under her long lashes. “Yes, you
are more like an anvil,” she told him.

“Quite hard you mean?”

“I did not say so. Perhaps I meant very useful.”

“And you are more like the marigold.”

“Quite useless?”

“I did not say so. Perhaps I meant because of a heart of gold.”

“Merci, monsieur. I like that better than if you had said as truly
lovely.”

“I meant that, too.”

“It strikes me,” said Alaine, slyly, “that one should not put honey in
pot à feu.”

“Let us have, then--what shall we say?”

“A smack of gossip which we will call herbs for smart flavor; I will
repeat that I do not trust M. Dupont, and you can contradict me if you
will. I tell you this because I do not want to say so to Gerard, who
is too fiery, nor to Papa Louis, who would call me an alarmist, nor
to Mère Michelle, who would be seized with affright. But remember, if
anything happens, that I said this. Ah, here we come to the rock where
we rest. I see the clump of cedars quite plainly. You shall have a
taste of Mère Michelle’s good bread for your pretty compliments.”

They were not long in reaching the spot which invariably served as the
resting-place for the church-goers, and from there they travelled on to
Collect Pond, where the dusty feet were bathed, the shoes and stockings
put on, and the journey considered as nearly over. The neighborhood of
the French church in Marketfield Street was alive with the crowds of
those who had come from Long Island, Staten Island, and New Rochelle.
Many had passed the night in the “cars,” and had eaten their breakfast
in these same wagons, to be ready for the long service before the last
stragglers should have arrived.

“And are you so very fatigued, my pigeon?” asked Papa Louis, as Alaine,
a little pale, but still keeping up her energetic walk, approached the
church.

“I am a little tired,” she returned, “but I am here, and I shall have
time to rest. Ah-h!” she gave a little start. “See there, papa, M.
Dupont is talking to M. Allaire. I trust he will not see us.”

To Alaine’s relief M. Dupont did not discover her. She kept a sharp
eye out during the period of intermission, when a cheerful chatter
was kept up by those who visited around from group to group. It was a
great event, this communion service on special Sundays, and meant not
only the enjoyment of free worship, but a gathering of friends and an
exchange of visits; a day’s pleasuring, in fact, for they enjoyed it
all, from the hearty singing of the psalms and the long sermon to the
arrival home after the toilsome journey.

“And you will not walk back?” said Pierre to Alaine, as they were
making ready for the return.

She shook her head. “No; twenty-three miles in one day quite satisfies
me, but I enjoyed it and the pot à feu, honey and all.”

“What do you say, my daughter?” Mère Michelle’s alert ears caught the
last words.

“Nothing important, maman; I but discussed the difference between the
pot à feu of those from Rouen and those from La Rochelle. Pierre there
likes to put a sprinkling of honey in his.”

Mère Michelle looked mystified.

“It is but some of Alaine’s mischief,” said Gerard, seeing the
expression on Pierre’s face. “Come, climb in, Alaine; we must be off.”
And the long journey home began.




CHAPTER IV

THE CIDER FROLIC


“Come, come, step up, my dear,” Mère Michelle said so often, one
morning a few weeks later, that Alaine realized with a start that she
was less virtuously energetic than usual. “So triste, my little one, or
is it that you are fatigued from yesterday’s labors? I feared that you
were going beyond your strength out there in the field.”

“No, no,” protested Alaine, “I have seldom enjoyed anything more. It
was so pleasant there out under the blue sky, but one has so many
things to think about as one grows older. I will hasten to finish my
daily tasks, and then I wish to see Mathilde Duval.”

Mère Michelle looked at her sharply. “It is not well for a lass to
frequent the home of a young man,” she said.

Alaine gave her delicate chin an upward toss. “I frequent the home of a
young man? I fail to understand you, Madame Mercier.”

“Ta ta, she has quite the air of a grande dame, she who might now be
weeping in a nunnery, or as a slave, a poor engagé, but for her old
Michelle, who guards her but for her own good, poor little fledgling.”

“Forgive me, Mère Michelle,” cried Alaine, stopping her occupation of
burnishing a brass kettle; “I forget sometimes, but indeed it was not
because of Pierre, nor of any other man, that I wished to see Mathilde.
We both desire to go to the Point this afternoon to join in the
devotions and to send a prayer heavenward for the safety of our beloved
ones.”

Michelle wiped a tear from her eye. “Wretched old woman that I am!” she
said, with a quick digression from wrath to remorse. “I was thinking,
Is not Gerard enough for her that she must run after other youths?”

“Gerard? Nay, but Gerard is my brother. You forget that he is a Mercier
as well as I.”

“He is a Legrand as you are a Hervieu,” returned Mère Michelle.

Alaine shook her head. “No, no, we do not say so. I pray you, Mère
Michelle, put any such ideas away. Whisper it not to any one that I am
a Hervieu. But a day or two ago you warned me not to disclose it.”

“Ah, well, I say so to no one outside this house.”

“But the birds of the air; there is one now on the bush outside; I fear
he will bear the news.”

Mère Michelle turned her head quickly, and then, at Alaine’s merry
laugh, set to work again at paring the vegetables she was making ready
for the dinner. “Beware how you go out alone,” she warned after a
moment’s silence. “Louis says the Indians are gathering to-day for
their yearly cider fête.”

“That is nothing,” replied Alaine; “they are friends. I do not fear
them.”

“Ah, that may have been, but nothing is certain since the word has come
of intended war,” said Mère Michelle, shaking her head. “Is it not
expected that our countrymen from whom we have providentially escaped
will descend upon us from Canada? and what may be expected at their
hands should they be joined by the Indians? Affairs are in a turmoil.
There are grave rumors and it is the hour’s talk.”

“Ah, but Monsieur Leisler, maman, remember him; he is at the head of
the people; he stands for the Protestant party. He has assembled the
people by beat of drum and has read to them the proclamation of the
English William and Mary. You should have heard Pierre telling of it.”

“Pierre! And did I not hear Gerard also tell?”

“He told not so much, but he said that M. Nicholas Bayard and Mayor Van
Cortlandt did not uphold M. Leisler. Then cried out Pierre, ‘Me, I am
for Leisler,’ and Gerard looked dubious. ‘No wonder,’ cried I, ‘that
Pierre is ready to put his trust in one who upholds Protestant faith;
engagé that he was, he knows the grip of the irons.’ For a truth,
maman, it makes my heart bleed when Mathilde tells me of how Pierre
endured that dreadful journey to Guadaloupa, of how he was beaten
and abused by the master to whom he was sold, and how it was he who
planned the escape of the party of which she became one. Poor Mathilde,
her sufferings were great, but his were greater.”

“And she adores Pierre in consequence, of course,” said Mère Michelle,
with a grimness unusual to her.

“Yes, as I adore Gerard,” replied Alaine, demurely. “Companions in
misery, Pierre and Mathilde, Gerard and I. But dear maman, we suffered
little, for it was the good God who gave us you and Papa Louis to
lessen our difficulties, and we, though refugees, were never slaves.”

“Since you adore Gerard,” remarked Michelle, “it would be well if you
were to pluck me a leaf or two from the garden to season his dinner.”

Alaine needed no second bidding. Down between the rows of garden
vegetables she went. If there was anything in which the Huguenots
excelled it was in their cultivation of fruit and flowers, and their
gardens were miracles of luxuriant growth. Soft-hued peaches sunned
their sides on southern slopes, grape-vines showed here and there a
purple cluster, for among his greatest treasures carefully brought
from the mother country the refugee considered his slips of vines as
among the first. Seeds, too, brought from France and carefully tended,
brought a harvest of bloom along garden-beds to cheer with their
brilliant colors the homesick emigrants. To these Huguenot refugees,
more than to any other element, is due the establishing of nurseries
and floriculture in America.

Stopping to pick a leaf here, a sprig there, Alaine bent over the
garden-beds. From the fields adjoining came the song of the workers.
The girl paused a moment to listen, and then ran back to the house
to help serve the dinner on broad wooden trenchers, to assist in the
clearing away, and then to make ready for her visit to Mathilde.

The girlish figure appeared before Michelle quite differently attired;
a half-shamed look was on Alaine’s sweet face.

“Voilà!” cried Michelle; “she appears as if for a fête in her silk
gown, her Lyons silk, of which she has but two remaining. Perhaps she
is bidden by the red men to their cider fête, is it so, then? And a
charming figure to be in the midst of howling savages scantily clothed
and not too clean. For why is this on a week-day, and no feast at all
that good Christians should attend? Ah-h!” she spread her fingers and
shrugged her shoulders, “it is for M. Pierre, I doubt not.”

The tears started to Alaine’s eyes. “Mère Michelle,” she said, “you do
me wrong all the time of late. You have forgotten, though I have not,
that this is my dear father’s fête-day, and I go to Bonnefoy’s Point
with those who do not lose their memory of France; there with them I
pray and send my psalm of longing across the sea. It is all that I can
do to show my father honor, this, to wear my best.”

Michelle dropped on a chair and covered her face with her apron.
“Reproach me; that will be right, my poor fatherless one. I do you
wrong, I who should cherish you and defend you from unkindness and
suspicion. I am to-day, as one would say, at odds with myself. Petite
émigrée, pauvrette, fifille, I am a stupide. I ought to have seen why
your eyes have all day been triste and your mouth so wistful. It is not
the kisses of a husband for which you sigh, but for those of a father.
Go, then, star of my life, and I will add my prayers to yours.”

Alaine, overcome at this humility, embraced her and called her dear
mamma and her always beloved Michelle, and then she turned to go. From
under her little cap her soft brown hair peeped, her high-heeled shoes
with their silver buckles clicked as she walked across the floor, and
her gown swished softly against the sides of the door as she passed
out. It was no peasant girl, but the daughter of one well-born, who
appeared that day on the street of New Rochelle. She walked quickly
toward a solid-looking new house and knocked at the door. “Enter,” came
the word, and almost at the same moment Mathilde appeared.

“I knew it was yourself, my Alaine,” she cried. “I am ready this
quarter-hour. All are gone; Pierre and my uncle to the fields, my aunt
to the poor young wife of Jean de Caux; she has hoped and feared till
now the fear is swallowed up in grief, for she has news that her
husband died on the voyage from France. Wait here till I again assure
myself that all is well.”

Alaine stood waiting for her before the fireplace, which was adorned
with tiles showing forth the history of the prodigal son, the lost
piece of silver, and other Scriptural incidents. She was absorbed in
contemplation of the raising of Lazarus when Mathilde returned.

“All is well,” she announced, briskly. “Come, I saw Papa Renaud go by
but this instant. The poor old one, he has never missed a day in going
to the spot where he landed, to turn his eyes toward his beloved France
and to lift up his voice in prayer and song. He is smitten with a great
home-sickness, is Papa Renaud. But me, I never wish to see France
again; it holds too many graves. Ciel! when I think of how many of
them, I am affrighted by the number.”

Alaine laid a caressing hand on her shoulder. “I do not wonder, my poor
Mathilde; one who alone of all her family is left must feel so. As for
me, I know not, and so I still long for France if it contain my father.
Hark! Papa Renaud begins his psalm.” They walked soberly to the spot
where, with head uncovered, stood the old man, his arms outstretched,
and his quavering voice chanting,--

  “Estans assis aux rives aquatiques
   De Babylon, plorions melancholiques.”

Mathilde and Alaine joined in softly, and then kneeling down, with wet
eyes, Alaine sent up a prayer for her father.

She knelt so long that Mathilde at last touched her on the shoulder. “I
must go now,” she said.

Alaine arose. “Leave me a little, then; I wish to stay longer.”
Mathilde turned and left her, and for a long time the girl knelt with
clasped hands, her eyes fixed upon the blue waters of the sound. So
long was her gaze turned in one direction that she did not see that at
last she was left quite alone by her friends and that a pair of crafty
eyes were watching her. The sound of the psalm-singing had given place
to the distant noise of the Indians in their frolic; the rise and fall
of a monotonous chant; howlings and whoopings.

“Ah, my father,” sighed the girl at last, “if you be on earth may
the good God bring you safe to me.” She arose to her feet, and with
downcast head she descended to where a cave in the rocks showed the
remains of charred wood. Here the arriving Huguenots, upon landing, had
built their first fire. The place was held as common property, and the
mood that caused Alaine to take a mournful pleasure in gazing at all
which could in any way remind her of her friends, her faith, her lost
France, made her linger here.

Suddenly stealthy footsteps crept up behind her; a pair of sinewy arms
seized her; a hand was clapped over her mouth, and before she could
scream or struggle she was carried around a point of rocks and placed
in a canoe, which was quickly pushed out upon the dancing waters of
the sound. In vain she tried to make some signal to those on shore.
Only the dancing, yelling Indians could see the little craft with one
of their own number guiding it through the water. Friendly though they
might be, this was their cider frolic, and even if they had been aware
of the deed, they would have been in no state to render assistance.

Alaine had passed through too many trying scenes to weakly give up to
tears. She lay very still in the bottom of the canoe, her large eyes
fixed on the Indian’s face. After a short time he loosened the thongs
with which he had bound her and said, “Little squaw not be afraid.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, sitting up. He gave a grunt and
shook his head. That question was not to be answered.

“Estans assis aux rives aquatiques,” she began to sing shrilly.

Her captor frowned and bade her hush. “No sing.” What could she do?
Where was he taking her? She cudgelled her brains for a reason for this
sudden act, for this seizure of her innocent self, but could decide
upon no cause for it.

On, on, the little canoe sped. The dense forests grew deeper and darker
as the light waned. Alaine with eyes strained for sight of a passing
boat scarcely moved, but as the sun began to sink and to redden the
water she shivered. Night was coming, and what would it bring her? Her
thoughts travelled to her humble home in the village. Now Gerard and
Papa Louis were coming in from the field; now Michelle was milking;
now they were making ready for supper, a salad, an omelette, maybe.
They would miss her; they would fear that she might be drowned, or that
something dreadful had happened. Something dreadful? It had happened.

The light and rosy clouds were turning to gray when the boat at last
touched shore. All was as silent as death. The great sombre pines
beyond the sands loomed up grimly against the sky; a sea-bird once in a
while dipped its wing into the waves, then, with a cry, circled aloft.
The girl crouching in the canoe did not attempt to move even when the
Indian drew the boat high off the sands. He waited for a moment, then
put a hand on her shoulder with the word, “Come.” She obediently arose,
and he helped her out upon dry land. Then seizing her wrist, he strode
up the beach toward the woods, which he entered by a narrow path.
Beyond, a faint glimmer of light showed that a clearing existed not far
off.

Alaine gave a little cry as, issuing from the dimness of the forest,
she saw before her a substantial house, from the windows of which
flickering lights were already beginning to twinkle. What was this, and
who lived here? For a moment a sense of relief stole over her. This was
no Indian camp, but the home of white people; all the surroundings
indicated it. The evening breeze fluttered the vine-leaves over the
small porch. Across this small porch the patient prisoner was led, and
before a door the Indian paused for a moment. “Warraquid has come,”
announced he.

The door flew open and out stepped, gay and debonair, François Dupont.
“Good-evening, Mademoiselle Hervieu,” he said, with a splendid bow,
“I trust I see you well. Your little trip has in no way given you
discomfort, I hope. So fine an evening as this it should be delightful
upon the water. Permit me.” He extended his hand, but she proudly
preceded him into the room, the door of which he held open for her.

It was a pathetic little figure which stood before the half-dozen men
assembled in the great room; her black silk gown was stained by mud and
torn by briers, and her little high-heeled shoes were scratched and
rubbed by rough stones, but the pale face, usually so sweetly piquant,
held a look of noble resolve, though the shadows under the dark eyes
bespoke anxiety.

“This, gentlemen,” announced M. Dupont, “is Mademoiselle Hervieu, whose
presence here is not so much a compliment to us as we could wish, since
she was not aware of her destination.” The gentlemen, who had arisen
when the girl entered, now bowed low, and one advanced to lead her to a
seat.

“Though you visit us perforce, mademoiselle,” said this gentleman, “we
trust your stay will not need be made a disagreeable one. You have but
to answer a few questions and you will be safely returned to your own
home.”

“And if I cannot answer them.”

“If you will not M. Dupont will tell you the alternative, which,
after all, is not so unpleasant a one, or should not be to a young
and charming lady. First, then, you are well acquainted with Pierre
Boutillier, Louis Mercier, and----”

Alaine turned swiftly. “I demand to know the alternative before I
answer these questions.” She faced M. Dupont imperiously. “It is true
that I am here by no choice of my own, and my lips are sealed unless I
know some good reason why I should speak. Whatever is just and right I
will answer, but nothing else.”

Her interrogator nodded in the direction of M. Dupont, who said, “By
your favor, mademoiselle, we will discuss this in private, and to spare
you the situation let me lead you to the other room.” Again Alaine by a
gesture refused his escort, and walked out with head carried high. In
the hall she paused uncertainly, but M. Dupont, with a quick movement,
opened a door on the opposite side and ushered her into a room sweet
with newly gathered flowers, and silent but for the steady tick of an
old Dutch clock which hung against the wall.

The door shut, Alaine again demanded, “The alternative.”

“So short you are, fair mademoiselle; then short must I be. An’ you
answer not these questions you will be sent to Canada, placed in a
nunnery there till your cousin Étienne comes to claim you.”

“And if I refuse him.”

“You remain in the nunnery.”

Alaine pondered the situation gravely. “But why? What good are these
questions? Alas! why do they distress a forlorn maid so sorely for the
sake of such scant information as she can give?”

“Because--it is for France. Do you not love France, Alaine Hervieu, the
dear place of your birth?”

She was silent a moment, then she said, slowly, “I love France.”

“It is for France you will do this; not for faith, nor for freedom,
nor for favor, but for France. She is at war with England, and for
her honor, her glory, we would know how stands this colony of Yorke.
You know as well any other--you are not wanting in wit and wisdom and
experience--that disaffection is at work in the colony; that Leisler
holds the fort; that Nicholas Bayard and Phillipse and Van Cortlandt
are his enemies; at such a time, when all is confusion and there is no
unity at home, it is the time for a blow to be struck from the outside.
Think of this as a French colony, of the peace and content and glory
for those you love, for you do love them still, those in your old home.
Think of being reunited to your father, when he shall occupy a place
of honor in this new country. No longer a peasant, you; no longer
associating with servants, but lady of your own manor, an honored wife,
a happy daughter. You will do this for France and for your father?” He
spoke with rapid intensity, his brilliant black eyes fixed on her face.

Alaine listened with parted lips. “My father!” she cried. “Where is he?
Does he live?”

“He lives. I can tell you no more. It is not so much you are asked to
do. No one will be the wiser; no one worse off than before.”

The girl’s heart beat fast; her hands trembled. “Take me back. I will
answer as I can, monsieur, as my conscience approves.” This time she
did not refuse the hand which led her through the hall back to the room
where the others awaited her. She approached with steady step the table
by which her questioner stood. “I am ready,” she said.

“You are well acquainted with Louis Mercier, with Gerard Mercier, his
reputed son; with Pierre Boutillier, the reputed nephew of M. Thauvet?”
The question was put without preliminary.

“I know them,” Alaine answered, without hesitation.

“They are friends and are upholders of Jacob Leisler?”

“Yes.”

“They are refugees from France, and have interested themselves in
raising soldiers for the defence of New York?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever heard them say how many were with Leisler in the fort?”

Alaine was silent.

“Or in what condition are the fortifications?”

“No.”

“They are working upon them, so M. Dupont has already told us; so that
may pass. We must ask of you but one more thing. Write at our dictation
the following words: ‘I have been carried away by the Indians, but am
now abandoned on the shore close to Long Point. Come to me as soon as
possible. I send this by one who refuses me escort.--Alaine.’”

She looked from one to the other. What did this mean? The questions had
seemed trivial and out of proportion to the deed of kidnapping her. She
was suspicious, but even her alert mind could see no danger in sending
the message which was to restore her to her friends, and she acquiesced
without a word of protest.

“Three separate notes, if you please. Address them to Louis Mercier, to
Gerard Mercier, to Pierre Boutillier,” came the request. Alaine did as
they bade her, and a nod of satisfaction followed the courteous thanks
she received. “To-morrow evening you will be free,” she was told.
“François, summon some one to wait upon mademoiselle to her room.” And
presently appeared an old woman, French and Indian half-breed, who
silently conducted the girl to an upper chamber, locked the door upon
her and left her alone.

The room was comfortably furnished; there was no lack of order anywhere
in the establishment, and Alaine wondered who had the ordering of it.
No discourtesy had been shown her, yet she felt distrustful and uneasy.
What did it mean? Had she unwittingly brought trouble upon those her
best protectors? Upon Papa Louis, under whose roof she dwelt, upon
Gerard her almost brother, upon Pierre who had already suffered so
much? She caught her breath as she thought of this. Oh, to gain her
freedom and warn them! She leaned far out the open window, but the
house built with projecting upper story, in the old fashion, gave no
means of escape in that direction. She drew back with a sigh. Night
and darkness, and howling wolves, and prowling Indians confronted her,
perils enough to make a stouter heart quake. Beyond these terrors, she
knew not where she was, nor the way home. There was nothing to do but
to submit to the inevitable.

With a woman’s heed to appearance she smoothed her gown, brushed from
it some of the stains and mud, tucked her soft brown locks under her
cap, and was standing looking ruefully at her scarred shoes, when the
door opened and the half-breed glided in. Alaine marked the greedy look
in the twinkling eyes as they fell upon the silver buckles on her shoes
and the chain about her neck, but the eyes shifted before the girl’s
look of inquiry, and the summons to supper reminded Alaine that she was
in reality very hungry.

She descended the stairs, at the foot of which stood François Dupont.
“I await you, mademoiselle. It is a pity that you must take your meal
with none but those of the stern sex, yet I trust your appetite is
good. If you would prefer you can have your supper served in your own
room. Let me thank you for what you have done for France.”

She smiled a little sadly. “I fear it was not so much for France as for
my own well liking. After we have eaten, monsieur, I would have further
speech with you.”

“To my pleasure; but before we join the others let me give you a word
of warning. For me, I am indifferent as to creeds, I am only for
France, France Protestant or France Catholic, but with these gentlemen
here it is different. I pray you speak not in disfavor of the Church.
They believe you--but I will not anticipate our discourse. Let me lead
you in.”

She gave him her hand and was led into the long dining-room, where a
plentiful meal was spread.




CHAPTER V

FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER


Alaine’s youthful appetite sufficed to cause her to consume a good
supper. The talk around the table was cheerful, and there were no
issues raised. “A strange position for a young French girl,” Alaine
thought, “in company of these men, I who all my life have taken refuge
by the side of my aunt or Michelle, and have never even taken a walk
with any man save Gerard or Papa Louis, unless I except that one Sunday
when I walked to church with Pierre as companion. What would my aunt
say to my present situation? Allowed free converse with a young man?
Shocking!” She smiled to herself in spite of the condition of affairs.
The Indian woman stood in one corner of the room during the meal, and
the girl wondered if she were to be again conducted to her chamber,
but she was relieved to find that this was not intended, for the other
gentlemen, sitting over their wine, allowed François Dupont to lead her
from the room.

“I am your guard, mademoiselle, therefore see that you do not overpower
me and make your escape,” he said, playfully.

“Into what?” she asked. “Into the terrors of the forest? Into unknown
ways? I am not so foolhardy, monsieur. I wish I might trust you,” she
added after a pause in which she had eyed him wistfully.

“Have I given you reason for lack of confidence?”

“Have you not? Ever since your arrival you have been persistently
following me up and prescribing my actions. For why is this?”

“Said I not that I was a friend of Étienne Villeneau? I will tell you,
mademoiselle, they believe you to have been spirited away by your
nurse, if not by force, by over-persuasion, and that once you are
brought back you will conform.”

She shook her head. “That will I never do. I am Protestant as my father
is. If I did not accept entirely the teachings of his faith before I
left France it was because I was not sufficiently informed. I now know
them and accept them fully. I shall never retract.”

“But you cannot blame your friends over there in France if they desire
it.”

“No, I cannot blame them, for they do not know the truth of it: how I
begged to be taken with Michelle when my father’s letter came, and how
I knew that I would rather by far suffer with her and with my father
than to live at ease as the wife of my cousin. No, they could not know
that, nor that I would never conform.”

“Not to save your father?”

“From what?”

“From the life of an engagé.”

“He is that? My poor father! Ah, I was not wrong, then, when I felt
this to be so.”

“If he be still alive you can save him, and if he be not alive you can
still save yourself from this life of poverty and labor. It is the wish
of madame, your aunt, of your cousin Étienne, that you do not lose
the property which is yours while you are Catholic, but which was in
danger of confiscation when your father became Protestant. In view of
the relation of the Villeneaux, who are not without influence in high
circles, the estates await your return, and once you are Madame Étienne
Villeneau they are yours. Am I not candid, mademoiselle?”

“You are. I understand it all but your part in the matter. I confess
you seem frank, Monsieur Dupont, but why this extreme interest on your
part?”

“You still doubt me? Be it so.” He shrugged his shoulders and changed
the subject by saying, “’Tis not so bad a country this, if one had
never lived in France.”

“It is a very good country in spite of France. We who are émigrés have
brought over our own plants, have planted the vegetables familiar to
us, and are cultivating the vine. We have modelled our homes upon those
we have left, and we are not strangers.”

“We who are émigrés,” he repeated. “I do not accept the term in the
case of yourself. You are still a daughter of France, la belle France.”

“Let us return to our first subject. My father, it is of him I think
continually. To-day is his fête-day, and for him I dressed in my best
that I might do him honor, though he knows it not, and for him I am
become a prisoner. Alas, I am unfortunate!” She sighed and folded her
hands resignedly.

François watched her for some moments, his head bent, his eyes taking
in every detail of the delicate profile, the fine lines of the figure
leaning against the post of the porch. “Mademoiselle,” he said at last,
“I have another proposition to make. I throw myself at your feet.
Escape you may. Your father, too, shall be free if----”

“If----” She turned quickly and leaned eagerly forward. “You mock me,
monsieur. What would you say? If----”

“If you will fly with me to Canada.”

“With you?”

“With me, as my wife. Do you not see that I adore you?”

“I do not see it. You scarcely know me, monsieur.”

“To know you an hour is to love you.”

“And Étienne, your friend? This is your honorable love for him.”

“Did I not first plead his cause, and did you not refuse to consider
him? Have I placed myself first? Listen, Alaine; it is so easy. We
arise early; we go forth. I take you to Canada, to the convent. When
you are ready we are united. I do not urge it now? I even make this
concession: one year and you will marry me. I leave you with the
Sisters, and at once I proceed to Guadaloupa, where I win the release
of your father. I buy his discharge and I present him to you as my
wedding-present. Is it not all so easy? We return to France, to your
old home; you leave behind you but a company of poor peasants, and you
return to your own.”

“And Étienne?”

“Will submit to the fate which has given you to me rather than to him.
I will say, My good friend, I tried to induce mademoiselle to consider
you, but since you commissioned me instead of going yourself, you see
the result. Is it not so easy, so beautiful, this plan of mine?”

“But my father, you forget as a Huguenot he cannot return to France.
How, then, shall I be benefited after all?”

“We can then do this: we can take up a residence in these colonies. I
do not even say that I will not in time embrace your religion.”

Alaine’s heart was beating fast; she had learned one supreme fact: her
father was in Guadaloupa. Inside the house the others were playing
cards with many excited exclamations and much laughter; the clink
of mugs of wine, the occasional thump of a hand as it laid a pile
of jingling coin upon the table, the stir of a chair upon the bare
floor, these sounds broke the stillness. Outside the insects kept up
a monotonous jarring noise; the damps of a September night began to
chill the air. Alaine shivered slightly and leaned back again against
the post of the porch. Her father’s life or hers, for one does not have
to die to lay down a life for a friend. At last she drew a long breath.
“You would take me away alone?” she asked.

“Marie, the half-breed, shall attend you.”

“And your plan is----”

He leaned eagerly forward; she could feel his warm breath against
her cheek; where the light of the candles fell on his face she could
see the intenseness of his eyes. Her hands folded themselves in a
rigid clasp as she listened to what he said in his low, rapid voice:
“To-morrow morning early, very early, by break of day, I will have some
one unlock your door, the one toward the rear of the house. Leave your
room, follow the entry to the back of the house; at the farthest window
you will see a ladder; climb down and follow the path to the edge of
the wood; I will be there to meet you. We will go to the water’s brink
and find the boat left there last night; we have but to pursue our way
a little farther and then strike inland, cross the northern colonies to
Canada, and all is well.”

“But why this great secrecy? These, your friends here, do they not
agree with your way of settling this?”

“One cannot tell; they are Frenchmen, but they are also Jesuits; they
would not agree to the escape of your father; they might discover our
intention with regard to him.” He watched her narrowly to see the
effect of his words.

“Oh, my father,” she murmured.

“You understand; these men are Frenchmen, and there is war between
France and England; there is no need to explain their mission here,
nor the reason of secrecy where they are concerned. When they have
accomplished their intention they will depart; we shall not see them
again, but now, while they are here, one must be discreet.”

For a long time Alaine sat with her chin resting in her two hands. At
last she spoke: “If I consent to this, you will permit me to send a
note to Michelle and M. Mercier to explain that I am safe. They have
been very good to me, peasants though you call them.”

“You shall certainly do so if it be no more than a note, and if it does
not compromise these your present entertainers.”

The girl arose to her feet. “Then, monsieur, if you see me at the edge
of the wood to-morrow morning it will be because I consent; otherwise
I shall have no object in going forth to tread an unknown way. I will
retire.”

He seized her hand and pressed a kiss upon it, and Alaine shuddered. “I
will send Marie to you. Good-night, sweet Alaine,” he murmured.

Slowly Alaine ascended the stairs and entered her room. The sound of
the revellers came up from below-stairs. The girl knelt before the open
window. Somewhere beneath the stars her father, a wretched slave, was
resting. Conform? She would never do that; perhaps, after all, she
need not. Yet, the nunnery, the ever-vigilant watchers, the loss of
liberty. Alas! alas! there would be worse than all that. If she, of
her own accord, by her own efforts, could win her father’s release,
how hard she would work. She would appeal to her friends; perhaps they
could help her. “My father, my father,” she sighed, “if I but knew what
to do.” She leaned her forehead on the window-sill, and back to her
remembrance came those peaceful days at home in France before those
hours of terror threatened her; then came the recollection of the quiet
dwelling in New Rochelle, the good pious parents, the simple, earnest,
happy ways. “I know now,” she said, rising. “No one, not even my
father, would have me seem to renounce my faith for any material good,
nor have me live a lie. Die will I, and die must my father, but we will
not, we cannot be treacherous to our friends nor our faith. This man,
what do I know of him? How can I tell what designs induce his fair
promises? No, no; I dare not trust myself in his hands. I do not know
much of the world, but I have distrusted him from the first. He may
never try to liberate my father once he wins me from my friends; he may
be making these fair promises but as a ruse to tempt me away.”

Marie’s soft step aroused her from her thoughts. There was an angry
glitter in the woman’s eyes. “Marie, Marie,” cried Alaine, pleadingly,
“I am a lonely, friendless girl; be good to me this night.” Suddenly
she slipped the silver chain from her neck, and, stooping, tore the
buckles from her shoes. “See, see,” she whispered, “I will give you
these if you will help me to escape. I do not want to go with François
Dupont; I do not want to go back to France. Oh, Marie, you are a woman,
save me.”

The woman’s brown fingers touched the silver ornaments caressingly.
“Marie like zis,” she said. “She no like you go wis François Dupont.
Marie sink you lof zis man, ees it so, yes?”

“No, no, I love only my own dear people, and I must go back to them.
Oh, if I could but reach them on the other side of Long Point, could be
sure that they and I were safe! If I could but get home again away from
all this! Marie! Marie! help me, and anything I have is yours.”

The woman’s eyes were fixed upon the trinkets, but she raised them and
allowed them to travel up and down the girl’s dress, and presently the
brown finger pointed to a silver clasp in the shape of a dove which
fastened Alaine’s kerchief.

“That, too? Yes, yes; you shall have all if you will but help me away,
early, so early, before it is day. Can you? Will you?”

Marie lifted the chain and dropped it from one hand to the other, as
she considered the subject. After a few moments she nodded.

“I take you. No Long Point; ozzer place where is some one will show you
ze way.”

“Is it far? Can we walk, or do we have to go by water?”

“We walk. Early I come for you. I sleep here. François Dupont say meet
him. I meet him.” She nodded her head emphatically. “Before ze sun, he
is arise, we go.”

Comforted by this hope of escape Alaine fell asleep, to be awakened
before the first indications of dawn had begun to tinge the sky. The
gray shadows were just giving place to a streak of light in the east
when the two women stole from the house, hurried across the wet grass
and into the deep woods. The birds were chirping sleepily in their
nests in the trees above them, though it was still dark in the forest.
Save for a fox bounding along, a rabbit leaping from the underbrush, or
a mole scuttling to his mound, there were no signs of wild creatures. A
walk of two or three miles brought the two women to another clearing.
Here Marie paused and pointed to a house from the chimney of which
a wreath of blue smoke was beginning to curl. “It is there you find
friend,” Alaine was told by her companion. “I go to meet François
Dupont.”

Alaine caught her hand. “Adieu, Marie! The good God bless you for
helping me.”

Marie held up the chain with a grim smile. “I am well pay, mam’selle.”
Then she turned and disappeared into the sombre shadows of the woods.

Across the fields Alaine took her way and presented herself before
the door of a house. Some one came clattering through the hall as the
girl’s knock was heard,--a sturdy Dutchwoman, who gazed at this early
visitor in stolid surprise. “May I come in?” asked Alaine.

The woman looked at the little shoes, damp with the morning dew, and
at the draggled skirts. Then she came out, shut the door behind her,
and beckoned Alaine around the corner of the house to the back door,
where she pointed to a mat on the step outside the kitchen. Alaine
understood. She gave her shoes many rubbings upon the mat and stepped
into the kitchen, warm from the wood-fire crackling upon the hearth.
After a moment’s gazing at the girl the woman pattered off into the
house, and came back with a lady, who looked with curious eyes at the
intruder. “Who are you, and where do you come from, my child?” she
asked. Alaine in her broken English began to stammer out her story.
The eyes of the lady lighted up as the stranger’s accent bespoke her
nationality, and she rapidly put her questions in French, and to these
Alaine was able to reply clearly. “Poor little one, a refugee and a
tool of enemies. Ah, me, how much wickedness there is in this world!
Come see my husband; he is French, a Protestant and an émigré, so you
may consult together and, companions in misery, may help each other.
We are but guests here ourselves, but Annetje, guessing your French
birth, brought me to you. She is not so stupid as she looks, that good
Annetje.”

Alaine followed her guide to an inner room. Before a window stood a
grave-looking man. “Nicholas, I have brought you a compatriot,” said
his wife, “and, like a good knight, you must lend your aid to a maiden
in distress. This is my husband, Nicholas Bayard,” she said, turning to
Alaine, “and you are?”

“Alaine Mercier, of the Huguenot colony at New Rochelle. I was carried
away from my home yesterday.” And she told the details.

Her new-found friends listened attentively. “A plot!” cried Nicholas
Bayard, striking his hands together. “French spies, without doubt,
those men. Ah, that I had the power to drag them from their retreat!
These friends of yours, can you imagine why these men are trying to
secure them?”

Alaine answered in the negative.

“I can tell you. They have been commissioned as bearers of messages to
certain points. They were to have started to-morrow. Doubtless these
men desire to get them into their hands, knowing they are refugees,
and that a threat to return them to France will cause them to divulge
all they know of the affairs of the colonies. They will probably offer
to take them into their service as spies, offering them such reward as
they think will be of value to them in return for their promise to act
in complicity with them. I think that explains it. We fear a descent
of the French and Indians, and I feel quite sure these men are acting
for the enemy. As for me, I am a friend of the government, but not of
Jacob Leisler, consequently, as an office-holder under James II., I am
suspected of upholding the papists. Now you understand why I am here in
hiding. You say these messages to your friends mentioned this evening
as the time to find you. We must, then, return you before then, but,
mind you, not a word of whom you have seen here. These friends of yours
are all for Leisler, I suppose.”

“Yes, they are Protestant, you know.”

“And am I not Protestant? Is not Van Cortlandt Protestant? Bah! ’tis
a poor excuse to gain the encouragement of the people. He is a vile
upstart and usurper, that Leisler. To hale us out of town, who are the
proper upholders of the government. Yet, I suppose you, mademoiselle,
also believe in Leisler.”

Alaine nodded. She was nothing if not truthful.

“Then no friend of mine,” he returned, but he smiled as he spoke. “Poor
little dove with the hawks after her,” he said, half to himself; “we
must send her under safe escort to her home. Where is Lendert, my wife?”

“He is here and ready for breakfast. And will be the more ready when he
sees the guest we have,” Madame Bayard said, smiling at Alaine. “Our
good cousin Lendert Verplanck it is of whom we speak. Here he is. Your
aunt will not leave her bed this morning, cousin, but we have a guest
you see, Mademoiselle Mercier, and you may take her out to breakfast.”

The good-looking young Dutchman was nothing loath despite Alaine’s torn
clothes and dilapidated shoes, for it did not need that she should wear
dainty raiment; the graceful head and little hands and feet were not
those of a peasant.

“Lendert,” said his cousin, “it must be you who will see this young
lady to her home, for I know none better to protect her by the way.”

“A horse from the stable and we are off whenever you say the word, my
cousin,” he returned. “We can cut across country and be out of the way
of followers, I think. Then I will continue on to the city and bring
you news of what goes on there. I believe it is not safe for you to
venture there while Leisler holds the reins. It is best you should keep
your hiding-place a secret.” He glanced at Alaine as he spoke.

“It will never be known through me,” she ventured, softly, “for, woman
though I am, I can keep a secret. My days have been too full of trouble
not to know the feeling of one hunted.” She smiled at the young man,
who protested that he had never dreamed of distrusting her.

“So lovely she is I could wish the way longer,” he whispered to his
cousin a half-hour later when they set off, Alaine mounted on a pillion
behind her cavalier. Her graceful, well-knit, buoyant figure was a
strong contrast to his big heavy one, and her sense of humor of the
situation once or twice caused her to smile behind the broad back.
Here was she travelling through the country with a strange young man
whose rosy Dutch face she had never seen till that morning. What would
Michelle say, and Gerard and Pierre? Strange that she had perfect
confidence in this escort, and had not the slightest fear of any one or
anything while he was there. How angry M. Dupont must be by this time!

She gave a little shiver at the thought, and Lendert’s blue eyes
cast her a glance over his shoulder. “Are you not comfortable,
mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she returned, “but I suddenly thought of where I might now
be but for my good fortune in finding friends.”

He nodded in reply. He was rather silent, this young man of the flaxen
locks, Alaine considered, but then, like Pierre, he might be of a
thoughtful inclination. He was at least a good listener, for although
Alaine did not understand Dutch, and his knowledge of French was
evidently slight, they both knew enough English to make themselves
understood and Alaine noticed that mynheer could always supply the word
over which she hesitated, if not in English then in his familiar Dutch.
So that a good understanding between them was reached before they had
compassed half their journey.

But it must be said that in following the bridle-path through the
dense forest Alaine felt somewhat less assured. She stopped her eager
chatter, and her arm around the waist of Lendert crept closer. At this
he turned and smiled at her with a reassuring expression of sympathy.
“You are all safe,” he told her.

She gave him a smile in return. “I know, but the forests are so still,
so deep, so interminable, one fancies, one dreams, one almost fears
that something terrifying may be lurking in the unknown beyond.”
Through the leaves patches of sunlight flickered down upon them; across
their pathway a squirrel leaped; birds at their approach started from
the branches overhead and, with sudden cries, darted deeper into the
dim recesses.

“I know the way well,” Lendert told her. “I travel here frequently.
Half-way we are. There is a long straight path ahead; you can see where
the sunlight comes through the trees all the way.”

It was, as he said, a path of sunlight ahead of them, checkered,
indeed, by leaf shadows, but much brighter than the surrounding woods.
As they advanced something was discerned moving toward them rapidly.
Presently their eyes discovered it to be a horseman urging his steed to
its utmost. Lendert glanced at his pistols, gathered his bridle more
firmly in his hand, cast a reassuring glance at Alaine, and continued
his way with seeming placid unconcern. “He journeys fast,” he remarked.
“A messenger express, I take it.” As they drew within closer range he
called out, “What, ho, my friend? What is the news you ride so fast
with?”

But Alaine gave a little scream of dismay and hid her face behind
Lendert’s broad shoulder. She had caught sight of the wrathful
countenance of François Dupont.




CHAPTER VI

FOR LIFE OR DEATH


At the sound of Alaine’s cry Lendert set spurs to his horse and made
a dash past the on-coming rider, but there came a report of a pistol;
his hold upon the bridle loosened; he reeled slightly in his saddle;
the horse made a plunge forward, then stopped short, and in an instant
François was alongside.

“You thought to escape me, my falconet,” he cried, “but I have the
jesses ready. You do not leave my wrist again. By St. Maclovius, I
was in luck to have crossed your path when I was on my way to your
hiding-place.”

He seized her waist and attempted to drag her from her seat, but she
clung to Lendert, down whose cheek the blood was running.

“Mynheer Verplanck,” she cried, “do not die! Do not leave me to the
mercy of this man!” And she beat off with her fists the hands of the
man whose hold was tightening upon her.

For a second Lendert looked around in a dazed way, then his stunned
senses returned, and he gave the horse a cut which caused him to spring
forward, and the suddenness of the movement dragged François from his
saddle, but he clung to Alaine’s pillion, and, cat-like, scrambled up
behind her. “I also go,” he said. “To quote your favorite Scripture,
mademoiselle, ‘Whither thou goest I will go.’”

Lendert lashed at him furiously with his whip, at which François gave
a low mocking laugh. “I advise you not to attempt that, monsieur,” he
said; “you might also strike Mademoiselle Hervieu. So closely are we
united, she and I, that what touches one touches the other. Is it not
so, Mademoiselle Hervieu?”

She made him no answer, but tried to shrink away from his close
embrace, and leaning forward, asked, in a low voice, “Are you hurt,
Monsieur Verplanck?”

“But slightly,” he whispered back.

Alaine made a little exclamation, for at this instant François whipped
out his knife to cut the belt into which Lendert’s pistols were thrust.
These fell with a clatter to the ground. In one moment their owner had
pulled in his horse, but to dismount meant to leave Alaine in the hands
of her enemy, and he but gave note to the spot and rode on.

“We ride,” cried François, “to the devil, maybe, though I fancy your
horse may grow weary if the journey be long. I am not of a great
weight myself, but monsieur there is not too light, and three of us.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Yet, I do not alight while mademoiselle
rides,” he continued.

Lendert gave a slow, sleepy look over his shoulder. “The mosquito is
sometimes bad in the woods,” he remarked, confidentially, to Alaine.
“After a while we are able to rid ourselves of the pest.” And he
turned his horse around.

“Ah-h!” cried François, “I see your manœuvre, monsieur,” and with the
quickness of a monkey he unloosed Alaine’s hands from the hold and
leaped with her to the ground, crying, “Ride on, monsieur, you are well
rid of the pest, eh? He will satiate himself first, this mosquito.” And
again a pistol-shot rang out.

“Poltroon! villain!” cried Alaine. “You shoot a man when his back is
turned.”

“I use the means the good God gives me, mademoiselle. I kill to defend
myself, and who would not? I kill even you, yes, rather than that other
there possess you.”

The pistol-shot had wounded Lendert in the shoulder, but he rode back
over the ground at a gallop, was down from his horse in an instant, and
picking up his own pistols from where they had fallen, he levelled one
at François.

But without hesitation François thrust Alaine in front of him, crying,
“This is a fashion of defence employed in some of your colonies, I
hear. One Monsieur Bacon has adopted the measure in Virginia, and I
follow this excellent American custom, good Sir Avoirdupois. Elephants
are clumsy creatures, and the nimble mouse can sometimes get the better
of the large beast of the long nose.”

Lendert advanced steadily upon him, but, holding Alaine still as a
shield, François sprang behind a tree. “A game, a merry game in the
wildwood,” he cried. “Catch who can. Advance, monsieur; there are
trees enough to enable us to keep up our pastime for many hours, and
to resume it to-morrow, if we like. Yet, I fancy, Monsieur Le Gros,
you will have lost the taste for sport by that time, judging from the
amount of bloodletting I have caused you. Ah-h, mademoiselle, the toil
in the fields has given you a peasant’s strength, yet it is not worth
while to attempt escape; I am the stronger, you see.” For Alaine had
tried, by a quick jerk, to extricate herself.

For two or three moments Lendert stood silently looking at them, then
he gazed around him with a puzzled expression on his quiet heavy face.

“He is at a loss, that Monsieur Le Grand,” François whispered, leaning
forward and saying the words close to Alaine’s ear. “He will presently
leave us, since he does not care to have the sport prolonged. Did you
think, Alaine, that I did not know the way to win a secret from Marie?
Fool that she is, to be dazzled by a few paltry trinkets. I repeat, I
am seldom at a loss, and she will do better the next time. You will not
have a more vigilant guardian than Marie when she receives you into her
keeping this evening. And to-morrow we commence our journey to Canada.”

The horses had wandered away some little distance, and were cropping
the grass along the path. Toward first one and then the other Lendert
advanced, slipped their bridles over their heads, and led them some
little distance, where he fastened them. He next took off the deer-skin
hunting-jacket which he wore and sat down upon the ground. Alaine saw
that there was a deep red stain coloring the white shirt underneath.
She watched him with fascinated eyes. What was he about to do? From his
pocket he took his sharp hunting-knife, and, strip by strip, painfully
and laboriously, he cut thongs from the deer-skin garment. It must be a
painful operation, Alaine considered, for even the slightest movement
of the wounded shoulder must give a pang.

“Monsieur Le Gros Cochon amuses himself,” said François. “I could
compassionate him upon his lack of freedom of movement; I, too, can use
but one arm, hampered as I am by the possession of this Naomi, to whom
I have pledged myself, ‘Whither thou goest I will go.’”

“There is at least one place where monsieur cannot accompany me,”
remarked Alaine, in cutting tones, and speaking for the first time to
her captor.

“And where is that, my Mara, so bitter?”

“To heaven,” Alaine retorted.

François laughed. “Some would say otherwise, mademoiselle. I fancy
those from whom you have parted company in la belle France would
consign you to a more fiery abode, and since you refuse to conform, I
may perhaps not be misunderstood if I employ any means which will still
allow me to accompany you even to an uncomfortable place. But we will
discuss this later. There will be time enough. At present I am rather
curious to discover our large friend’s intention. It seems the work of
an imbecile to cut one’s clothes to pieces, wanting something else to
do. Perchance he wishes to take me off my guard and seeks to mislead me
by playing the fool, so that I will release you, but I hold you fast,
do I not, my falconet?”

Lendert arose to his feet. His ruddy countenance was growing strangely
white; his flaxen hair was dappled with blood and his shirt was
stiffened by the same, but in his blue eyes there was the steady look
of obstinate resolve.

“I think we may attempt to run now, mademoiselle,” said François. “He
cannot follow very fast nor very long. I regret that I cannot spare
time from my devoted attention to you to reload my pistols. I may need
them.”

“You will not find yourself very light of foot with a dead weight to
drag behind you,” vouchsafed Alaine.

“But if I lead the chase, Monsieur Le Cochon Hollandais cannot keep up
the pace for very long; he bleeds freely, the stuck pig. See, I start.”
He pushed the girl behind him, clasped her arms around his waist, and,
holding her hands in front of him, set off on a run.

But Alaine, as she felt his left hand fumble for his pistols, let
herself drop to her knees.

At this instant there came a singing, whirring sound; a slender
leather rope whizzed through the air and fell about them, tightening
around the man’s shoulders with a jerk. He was brought to a standstill;
then as the thongs enclosed him more securely his arms were forced
back by the strain, and the girl saw her opportunity. A short struggle
and she was able to make her escape. She rushed breathlessly toward
Lendert. “Monsieur Verplanck, I will help you,” she cried.

François bowed himself and fiercely tore at the slender deer-skin
thongs, and at last, running backward, was able to slacken the cord and
to wriggle himself out of its hold. A moment more and his pistol was
ready in his hand. Alaine foresaw his intention, and before he could
fire she sprang before her deliverer, who had sunk upon his knees and
was leaning heavily against a tree, all his strength gone from this
last effort. “Monsieur,” cried the girl, “it is an American custom,
you say, to use a woman as a shield. Monsieur Verplanck has proved
that it is false, and that it is but the makeshift of a coward. Yet,
because you have shown me how powerful a shield a woman can be, I stand
here.” She gave a quick glance at the fainting figure before which she
stood; then she lifted her head high and faced François. “I defy you,
monsieur,” she said.

He rushed at her blind with rage. “I will kill you before you shall
escape me!” he cried.

“Kill me if you will. I have warned you that where I go you cannot
follow. Do you think me so great a coward as to be afraid to die?” she
asked, with a mocking look in her great eyes. “Death comes to all, and
what matter when or where? Shall I be worse off in that other world
because you choose to be the means of sending me there before God wills
it so? Or shall you be better off here when I am gone, and after, when
you go to face God’s judgment of you? Take my life? You cannot; it is
God’s, who gave it, and it is for the life eternal. Kill me if you
will; you lose all if you do and I gain everything.”

Twice he lifted his pistol; twice it dropped to his side. “I will wait
till your friend is dead,” he said at last, in sinister tones. “’Twill
not be long. I will wait, mademoiselle. It is sometimes better to
endure patiently, say you Huguenots, therefore I follow your example. A
dead man needs no shield, and, also, can tell no tales.”

Alaine cast a frightened glance at the drooping figure behind her.
“Monsieur Verplanck,” she cried, in dread, “if I but dared to turn my
back, but yonder wretch has no conscience, and he would finish the work
he has begun. I must keep my face toward him to watch him, but I will
try to stanch your wound.” She took the kerchief from her neck, and
without exposing him to the possible attack from François, managed to
twist a tourniquet above the place which bled the most freely, after
which she arose to her feet, and stood again defiant, determined. The
eyes of her enemy were bent fixedly upon her. She closed her own and
began to sing one of the familiar psalms.

  “Aux paroles que je veux dire,
   Plaise toi l’oreille prester:
   Et à cognoistre t’arrester,
   Pourquoi, mon cœur, pense et soupire,
       Souverain Sire,”

rang out the plaintive voice in the still forest. “Sovereign Sire” came
the echo. Was it an echo? Alaine’s dark eyes grew more intense as she
listened. Faintly upon the air came the second stanza of the psalm,--

  “Enten à la voix très ardente,
   De ma clameur, mon Dieu, mon Roy,
   Veu que tant seulement à toi
   Ma supplication présente
   J’offre et présente.”

Nearer and nearer came the voice, and with all her heart in her singing
Alaine continued, but before she had finished the third stanza the song
ended suddenly, and her glad cry was, “Pierre! Here, Pierre, mon ami!
Praise to the good God, thou art come!” Then from the greenwood strode
Pierre Boutillier, who stopped in amazement at the sight of Alaine
standing guard over a prostrate man, while the form of François Dupont
retreated down the path into the forest beyond.

“Pierre, Pierre, hasten! I dare not move. Secure yonder man.” Alaine’s
trembling finger pointed to François.

Pierre rushed forward. François raised his pistol and half turned in
his flight, but before he was able to fire he stumbled and fell forward
on his face.

“God have mercy!” cried Alaine. “Pierre, have you killed him?”

He stooped and turned over the body of the man at his feet. “No, he
lives. It was his own pistol gave the hurt; it went off as his foot
struck the root of this tree where he fell.”

“God have mercy!” again whispered Alaine. “Then, Pierre, we have two
of them wounded. And how did you find me? And is this not a terrible
thing, all this? Have you some spirits? Monsieur Verplanck has fainted.
Is it not strange that I am not dead? I thought my last hour had come.
And you, Pierre, you are not hurt?”

He assured her that he was untouched, and then busied himself in
ministering to Lendert while Alaine poured forth her story.

“We have been scouring the woods,” Pierre told her, “and I took this
direction, and when I heard your voice I knew the good God had put my
feet upon the right path. Gerard is not far away. I think I can summon
him. We were to meet at the end of this path when the sun was noon
high. There, your friend is recovering; he opens his eyes.”

“You are better, monsieur,” said Alaine, softly, kneeling down by him.
“Now, pray you, Pierre, see to that other unfortunate. One would not
have the blood even of an enemy upon his head; but, Pierre, I advise
you to secure him that he does not move. He is possessed of the very
evil one for strategy. Yet he spared me,” she murmured. “If you find
you can restore him, go you and find Gerard, and I will wait here. I am
no longer afraid.” She raised her lovely eyes to his, and Pierre with a
swift movement caught her hands.

“I thought you dead, Alaine,” he said, brokenly. “I thought I should
see you nevermore in this world.”

Lendert lay watching them. He stirred slightly, and Alaine with a soft
flush on her cheek bent over him solicitously. “We are safe,” she
told him. “My good friend Pierre Boutillier, who has been out with a
search-party looking for me, has arrived and goes for succor.”

“And the Frenchman?” said Lendert, feebly.

“He is wounded sorely by a shot from his own pistol. He is not able to
move, and can do no one harm for some time to come. We will take you
to our home and nurse you well, monsieur.” She nodded brightly as he
shook his head. “’Tis no more than our right, since you were hurt in
my service. But for me you might now be safe and unhurt. Will you not
allow me to pay my debt? Mère Michelle is a famous nurse, and can make
you strengthening soups such as you never ate, and will have you up and
about in no time. I think you will allow it is best, M. Verplanck.
Besides,” she lowered her voice, “it would not do to let it be known
that Monsieur Bayard abides so near. I would not bring trouble upon
him and madame, his wife, and so---- No, no, it is not that Pierre and
Gerard and Papa Louis would try to do evil to one who had befriended
me, but it might be inconvenient for them to know where hides Monsieur
Bayard. Is it not so? You agree?”

“I agree,” he answered; “though I do not wish to give you the trouble
of nursing me.”

Alaine had cut away the sleeve and was carefully examining the wound.
“It is not severe, I think. You will not be very long an invalid. The
loss of blood has weakened you. I ought to go to yonder man now.”

Lendert looked at her in surprise.

“He is my enemy, yes, but one ought to do good to one’s enemy,” she
said, simply. “I will first bind up your wound with these bandages
steeped in the wine which Pierre has brought, and you will feel better.”

But she was spared the necessity of giving attention to François,
for Pierre and Gerard were soon with him. Alaine threw herself into
Gerard’s arms. “My brother,” she cried, “I am here! Is it not wonderful
that I am here? And you have been all night seeking me. I am thankful
that you have found me; you do not know how thankful I am that Pierre
came at that moment. You did not receive my message, for you have not
been at home, and for that I am also thankful. All is well, very well,
save that M. Verplanck is suffering for his defence of me. As for that
other, he is punished for his wickedness. M. Verplanck does not deserve
punishment, and yet he has it.”

“We all deserve punishment,” said Pierre, solemnly.

“That may be,” returned Alaine, “but for me, I do not wish to say why
one should suffer for his good deeds. No doubt the good God knows, but
still I say if M. Verplanck suffers it may be for his good, but not
because he deserves punishment. For what should he, Pierre, when he has
but defended me?”

Pierre shook his head. “I cannot say, Alaine.”

“And you, Gerard, is it punishment, think you?”

Gerard laughed. “To stop here in the forest to discuss a theological
question when two suffering men are to be removed to a more comfortable
place seems unnecessary. If you and Pierre must debate let it be on
the way home. If your friend there can ride let him mount his horse,
and I will take the other steed and bear the more injured one upon it.
You and Pierre can walk, unless Pierre would prefer to be guard for M.
Dupont.”

But here Lendert interposed. “Why cannot Mlle. Mercier travel with me
the same as before, on my horse?”

Alaine looked at Lendert and then at Pierre. “I will walk till I am
tired,” she gave her decision, “and then, M. Verplanck, I will ride.”

The tedious journey came to an end when the little hamlet of New
Rochelle was reached that afternoon. Papa Louis was overtaken before
they had come to the edge of the woods. “A pretty plot for a romance,”
he exclaimed, after clasping Alaine and kissing her on each cheek;
“a lost ward returning with four attendant knights, and some of them
wounded in the fray? Who are these, my daughter?”

“These, Papa Louis? Ah, it is a long story! I will walk with you and
tell you my romance, as you call it; a strange one, indeed. Captured by
Indians, rescued by yonder gentleman, wrested from him by the other, so
sorely hurt. Am I not the heroine of a romance? Yet it has been a sad
time for me, and I would rather the humdrum of every day so I be safe
with you and Mère Michelle.”

“And for what was it all?” asked Papa Louis, knitting his brows as
Alaine went into the particulars of her experience.

“That I cannot altogether tell. I half doubt M. Dupont’s words, though
he acts the distracted lover, he who has seen me but two or three
times.”

Papa Louis shook his head. “It will be for Michelle to unravel it. She
is very acute, is my Michelle, and though she has not the learning
from books, she has a penetration unexcelled. She is distracted, the
poor one; she one moment thinks you destroyed by wolves, the next
drowned in the waters of the sound, and again she declares you have
been carried away by savages. She has not slept, neither has she eaten
a mouthful. As for the neighbors, they have sent out search-parties
in all directions. The news of your return must be given and the
signal-fire lighted.”

And, indeed, there was a great running to doors and windows and a great
bustle in the street when the little procession wended its way through
the village. Mère Michelle, weeping, fell on Alaine’s neck. “She that
was lost is found! Helas! my Alainette, how I have grieved for thee! On
my knees all night, save when I watched from the window, prying into
the darkness for a torch-light which might tell of your safe return.”
But here the good woman’s attention was distracted by the sight of the
two patients. Gerard and Pierre bore the unconscious François into the
house and laid him on one of the beds, and Papa Louis assisted Lendert
with much show of concern. Lendert protested, but was made to occupy
the other bed, and this strange situation brought a grim smile to
Pierre’s lips.

Michelle, running from one to the other, directing, exclaiming,
rejoicing, grieving, had her hands full. “Heat me a kettle of water,
Louis. Ah, mon cœur, but he is badly hurt, this wicked one. Thank
heaven! you escaped, my Alaine. Yet see your best silk gown, a rag, a
fringe, and your buckles gone from your shoes, which are fit only for
burning, so skinned and torn are they, and where will you get another
pair? Alas! you come back poorer than you went. A stoup of wine,
Gerard, for this gentleman grows faint. He is of good stuff, for he has
not flinched, and his shoulder must be very painful. Steep the bandages
well, Gerard. Art better, monsieur? There, I think we must keep you
very quiet. The other is of no weight. I could lift him myself, but
he is the color of wax. He is not fit to die, the miserable, and we
must save him for God knows what, yet we cannot let even an enemy go
directly to burn in hell, as he surely would.”

The eyes of the sufferer opened slowly; they caught sight of Alaine.
“Whither thou goest,” the white lips murmured, and Alaine, bravely
as she had endured everything else, now burst into tears, and sobbed
inconsolably upon Papa Louis’s shoulder.




CHAPTER VII

WHITHER THOU GOEST


“Did I not say that I was not to be shaken off?” were the first words
that greeted Alaine as she passed by the bed of François Dupont the
next morning. “A charming situation, this; I could not have played my
cards better. For what else but this sorry wound could have made me an
inmate of your household? I am here--pouf! and you cannot move me or I
die. I am lucky, by St. Michael.” The triumphant look in his eyes for
an instant made Alaine pause, a retort upon her lips, but she passed
on without a word. “Water! A draught of water; I am so parched!” cried
François.

Alaine looked around. Mère Michelle was preparing a broth and was
giving all her attention to it. Gerard and Papa Louis were not
within-doors.

“A cup of water, Alaine,” said Michelle, without taking her eyes from
the bubbling mess over which she stood. “Give him a fresh drink from
the well. I am at a most critical point with this, and I dare not
leave. Hasten back, for my hands are full. We shall have help later in
the day.”

Silently Alaine took her cup to the well, in her heart protesting at
having to do this service. “A wicked girl am I who am not willing to
obey my Bible, which says, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he
thirst, give him drink.’ Helpless though he be, I still fear M. Dupont.
I could, an’ it were not wicked, I could wish he were never to leave
his bed.” She caught sight of Pierre across the street, and she called,
“Pierre, Pierre!”

He came toward her gladly, a smile curving his grave lips. “Take this
cup and give a drink to M. Dupont,” she said. “I do not wish to be the
bearer. I will not cheat him out of the water, but I will cheat him out
of my service of it. Do not look so judicial, my friend. He is mine
enemy, yet am I not sufficiently complaisant in sending him the water
by such a good messenger as yourself? Carry it to him, good Pierre. How
is Mathilde? And will all the village flock to behold me this morning?
There, take in the cup, and tell Mère Michelle that I have gone to
speak to Papa Louis, and that I will return in a moment.”

Pierre took the cup without protest and entered the house. “Wait there
till I come back,” Alaine called after him, and then she disappeared
into the garden.

The melancholy face of the young Huguenot bent over the pillow of
François. “I bring you water,” he said.

François opened his eyes. “So I am not to be favored by grace from my
lady’s hand. I will win it yet, and would win it the sooner were it not
for yonder lubberly piece of flesh which sleeps so soundly in his bed.
By my faith, he did not stir when the demoiselle herself entered. I am
a rack of pain and parching with fever, yet she bestows not a glance of
compassion upon me, while she tiptoes past yonder Sir Mount-of-Flesh as
he were a sleeping infant. I owe you small thanks for your part in this
pain I bear, but I am under obligation to you, monsieur, for the good
turn you have unwittingly done me in causing me to be in a condition to
be brought here perforce, and I thank you for the cooling draught of
water.”

“Monsieur, you talk too much,” came from Michelle. “I cannot answer for
your recovery if, with a fever upon you, you chatter like a magpie.”

“I will subside when I am ready,” said François, “good Michelle, who, I
remember well, has scolded me before in those old days in France, when
Étienne Villeneau and I robbed her currant-bushes.”

“Tchut, monsieur! you vagarize. You are wandering. I pray you compose
yourself. Look yonder at M. Verplanck; he has the docility of a lamb.
I say, ‘Sleep;’ he sleeps. I say, ‘Eat;’ he eats. I say, ‘Drink this,’
and he swallows my mess however nauseous. He will recover, that lamb.”

“And I will not?”

“You will be longer at it, monsieur.”

“Then I converse. I address myself to you, if you are here; to Monsieur
Lamb, be he asleep or awake; to the wall; the fire.”

Mère Michelle turned her back upon him and beckoned Pierre to the
window. “’Tis about Alaine I wish to speak,” she began, in a low tone.
“This will be upon the tongues of all, and monsieur there is too ready
of speech. We must not let the whole story be known. We shall say that
Alaine was captured by the Indians, who in their drunken frolic did not
know what they were doing, but coming to their senses abandoned her
and she was rescued by M. Verplanck; that you came upon them returning
here; that M. Dupont was found wounded in the wood, and you brought him
also. This is all strictly true, Pierre; a good Huguenot cannot lie,
yet we must shield Alaine. You must say, Pierre, that our patients are
too ill to receive company, and so will we keep off the curious ones.
You agree, Pierre?”

“I agree.”

“Then tell Alaine that I wish her here. Cœur de mon cœur, but I fear to
have her out of my sight.” She turned back toward the fire as Pierre
closed the door and went out.

“I detest you, monsieur, I am ready to confess; I detest you. To yon
funeral-faced Huguenot I am grateful because, though I would have fired
at him, it was to secure my liberty, and he understands; but as for
you, Monsieur Ox, Monsieur Beef, I detest you, sleeping there like a
log.” François rambled on. “No, Michelle, I will not be still. I am
entertaining to myself, and I talk. I will drink your well dry, but I
will take none of your herbs, nor your nauseous potions. I shall not
die because I will to live. I am of a strong will, Madame Mercier,
who was Michelle Assire back there in France, and I do not mean to die
just yet. A drink of water when I ask it, and you are free to pour your
messes down yonder bumpkin’s throat. I confess I would heal the sooner
were he elsewhere, for I detest him, that Monsieur Blubber-fat.”

“For shame, monsieur,” Michelle chid him gravely. “You have done much
more to offend than has M. Verplanck, and you must not call him such
names here in my house.”

“You cannot help it, Michelle, for you do not desire to pitch me out
of doors and have my life on your conscience. Besides, he cannot speak
French, and it amuses me to call him names. Ho, there, Ox! Wake up.”

Michelle, distressed, hurried to Lendert’s bedside.

“His brain wanders, good sir. I pray you do not mind him,” she said, in
anxious explanation.

Lendert smiled and turned his head. “Ho there, Mosquito!” he said,
sleepily. “I thought I heard you buzz some time ago.”

Michelle looked helplessly from one to the other. “You see he does
understand more than you think. I shall have to separate you,
gentlemen, if you are bound to carry on your differences here side by
side.”

And true enough, François found his defiance went for little, for,
with Gerard’s help, Michelle screened him in, and he was not allowed
the diversion of watching what went on outside the counterpanes which
served as partitions to shut off his bed from the rest of the room. His
chatter sometimes sank into a murmur, but he talked incessantly, while
Lendert lay docility itself.

“She is distraught, is Mère Michelle,” Alaine told Pierre that same
afternoon, “so distraught that I do not dare tell her the news of my
father, nor what I intend to do when these two are well. I cannot leave
her now, it would be too cruel, but I intend to rescue him, Pierre. I
have told no one, not even Gerard, nor Papa Louis, what I mean to do.”

Pierre looked down at her concernedly. “And what is it, Alaine?”

“I mean to go to Guadaloupa. Surely they will accept me in my father’s
stead, one as young and strong as I.”

He gave a smothered groan. “You know not of what you speak, Alaine.
Once there you and he would both be restrained. You cannot, must not
attempt it.”

The tears gathered in Alaine’s eyes. “But my father, I cannot let him
remain bound when I go free. They will take me, Pierre. You surely do
not think they would not do it.”

His eyes had a far-off look in them as she went on. “You have been so
peaceful, so happy here,” he said.

“I cannot be happy now; I can never be happy while he is there. I
should be content, I would serve joyfully, if he were free. All my
life there will be that misery at my heart if he dies an engagé and I
make no effort to free him.”

“What is your plan?” Pierre asked after a silence.

“I thought to go to Manhatte to find a ship sailing for the islands and
touching at Guadaloupa. I have a little money, and I could earn more. I
would sell anything I possess to add to the sum to pay my passage, and
once there I would find my father’s master. Oh, Pierre,--his master!
You know what that means, for you have escaped from one. I would say,
Here am I, young, strong, and willing; take me and let my father go.”

Pierre shook his head. “That cannot be. You would never accomplish
it, Alaine, but I will consider what is to be done, and we will speak
of it again. Now I must warn you to be cautious how you tell of your
experience. Not even to Mathilde must you tell all.”

“I know. Mère Michelle has advised me. And I, also, warn you, Pierre.
The three notes which came while you were off in the woods looking for
me, I wrote them, yes, you know that, but those who bade me do so are
spies; therefore beware, if you must go on any mission. You might be
captured, and it would be best to take some other route than that you
intended. This François Dupont may be a spy for all we know, and you
must be very wary of him.”

“And M. Verplanck, is he also an enemy?”

Alaine looked down. “I do not know, Pierre. I do not think he is.”

“Where does he live? How did you encounter him? I have not yet been
informed of the whole matter.”

“I was directed to his aunt’s house by the woman Marie, and there I met
him.”

“You saw his aunt?” Pierre looked down at the girl’s drooping head.

She hesitates a moment. “No, I did not see her. She was ill of a
migraine. I saw another lady; her cousin.”

“And who was she?”

Alaine was silent.

“Did you see any other?”

“Yes, the Dutchwoman who rules the kitchen.”

“And no one else?”

Alaine gave her head a toss. “You question too closely, Monsieur
Pierre; beyond your right, and beyond what I choose to answer.” She
dimpled and smiled as she looked up into his grave face. “Mère Michelle
warned me of speaking too minutely of my experiences. I take her
advice.” She walked away. Pierre followed her a few steps.

“Alaine, Alainette,” he called, softly.

She paused under the shadows of the trees. He came close and said,
slowly, “I have not the right to question you, Alaine, but I love you,
Alaine. I love you.”

She sighed and glanced at him from under her long lashes. “Papa Louis
and Mère Michelle have designed to marry me to Gerard.”

“And Gerard?”

“Loves Mathilde better.”

“Mathilde?”

“Yes; and you, do you not love Mathilde?”

“I love her, yes, as one does a sister; not as I do you, Alaine.”

“As I love Gerard and as he loves me, no doubt. But one must be guided
by one’s parents.”

“And your parents; one is in heaven, the other in Guadaloupa, as you
have told me. Therefore, Alaine----”

“Therefore I have no one to whom I can refer you except Papa Louis and
Mère Michelle.”

“And yourself, Alaine? Ah, if you but knew how anguished I was at your
disappearance; if you knew how I have thought of you, of you only since
that blessed Sunday when you walked to church.”

“And not before?”

“Before? Yes, ever since your little face like a star came to illumine
my sky.”

Alaine put her head bird-wise to one side. “You are a poet? I never
knew that. You are so solemn, as an owl, Pierre. We should quarrel,
yes, about those questions of theology. I am light-minded; when I have
thrown aside a sorrow you do not know how I make merry over little
things, and that would seem childish and unbecoming to you.”

“You are not really that, Alaine. You are full of courage and dignity,
yet you are also like the birds who sing. Ah, my soul, when I heard
your voice in the woods singing ‘Aux paroles que je veux dire,’ I
thought I should expire with joy.”

“Poor Pierre! I do not know, my friend; I, too, was overjoyed at sight
of you, but--no, no, not so near--I do not know, I cannot tell whether
it was because of its being Pierre Boutillier or whether it was because
it was a deliverer. And then, Pierre,--this is my real reason,--as
I have told you, I must release my father before I can consider a
marriage with any one.”

“And if I could--if I should release him you would--Alaine, you would
marry me?”

“I can make no promise. I would then marry him of whom my father should
say, This is he whom I wish for my son. But if there is no way, no way,
Pierre, save that I spoke of to you, I must go. You will learn about a
ship for me?”

“I will do that.”

“Soon?”

“As soon as I can. There are things I must do first. I have to go away
on a mission, Alainette.”

“For whom?”

“For Governor Leisler. When I return I will see you, and then----”

“And then? Why do you look so miserable, Pierre?”

“Because I love you. You do not know how I love you, my Alainette.”

“Not yours, nor any one’s, but my father’s.”

“Whom you shall see again if he be alive.”

“Mère Michelle is calling me; I must go.”

“You will let me say good-by to you here.”

“Yes; but it need not be a long farewell I hope.”

He caught her hands and pressed fervent kisses upon them. “God bless
thee, now and forever,” he murmured.

“He is so good, that Pierre,” thought Alaine, as she walked slowly
toward the house. “Ciel! who would dream that he could say such things,
he is so grave and solemn, my owl Pierre. I am very fond of him, I
confess, but a maid has many minds, and now I have begun to fancy that
blue eyes, sleepy blue eyes,--no, not always sleepy,--but honest blue
eyes, may be more charming than black or brown. Black I like not; no,
I like them not. I fear it will be, Adieu, Pierre; yet if you bring my
father to me I keep my promise, good Pierre. I am very foolish; a maid
should not let her fancy rove when her parents have made a choice for
her.”

“Alaine, Alaine!” called a voice from the garden.

“Yes, yes, Gerard, I come. Here I am,” she answered.

The young man waiting for Alaine at the edge of the garden was gazing
over field and orchard. The young trees but a year ago planted gave
promise of thriving well, and of supplying luscious peaches or
bouncing apples. The treasured vines, so carefully guarded in their
transport from France, had grown sufficiently to twist their slender
tendrils around the trellis built for them. In the garden-beds
flourished endive, chicory, and those garden-stuffs dear to the French
palate. Beyond the enclosure stretched fields of maize yellow for the
harvest.

“It is a quiet, pleasant little home, Alaine,” said Gerard; “we owe it
to Mère Michelle and Papa Louis that it is ours, is it not so?”

She came over to his side and leaned against the fence. “We owe them
much, Gerard.”

“And because they have sacrificed themselves for us we should not show
ourselves ungrateful.”

“You have worked with a good will, Gerard, side by side with Papa
Louis in the garden, and, ciel! how many miles you must have walked in
planting and tending the maize in the fields!”

“And you, Alaine, how your little hands have spun and scoured and
toiled! You were not meant to do such things, my sister.”

“Nor were you, my brother.”

“Nor was Papa Louis meant to be a tiller of the ground. All of us save
Mère Michelle have stepped out of the world in which our fathers lived.
It was for us, I am sure, Alaine, that Papa Louis married. It was for
me that he fled from France and became an émigré here in America. I
well remember that flight in the dead of night, and the sound of the
dragonnade. Papa Louis could have gone alone more easily, but he took
me, who had not always been the most diligent of pupils.”

“And Mère Michelle could have escaped without me, but burden herself
she would. And when I was ill, how she tended me on that long voyage
over, and before that and since!”

“And myself the same. She is a good nurse, a good wife, a good mother,
that Mère Michelle.”

“And Papa Louis always so cheerful, so gay, and never willing to admit
failure. So ready to help with his little strength. He has been very
good to us, a giant in love and faithfulness.”

“And therefore, Alaine.”

“Therefore----”

“We should please them, those two, by acceding to their wishes.”

“We should do that, Gerard, yet----”

“You understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“They would have us marry and succeed to the little farm they have
begun to love so dearly, and where they hope to pass the rest of their
days. They would have us to dwell here with them, to cherish them in
their old age; and have they not a right to expect that we will regard
their wishes?”

“Yes; but, Gerard, I have made a promise.”

“Alaine! Without consulting them?”

“I was obliged to; it was to Pierre. I promised him that I would marry
whom my own father should desire. He may be alive, Gerard, and I am
nursing a little hope that he will return to me. Pierre is arranging a
plan.”

“But there is Mathilde.”

“What of her?”

“Her uncle and aunt wish to see her married to Pierre.”

Alaine’s eyes danced and she laughed. “And you, Gerard, you would be
delighted if it were arranged, I am sure.”

He laughed too. “I see, then, there is nothing to be done at once. What
is it that Pierre purposes doing? What is this plan of which you speak?”

Alaine shook her head. “Say nothing of it, Gerard. Leave it for a time.
I fear it may be that my father no longer lives, yet I heard of him in
Guadaloupa.”

“And you love this sober Pierre?”

“I think he is very good, and if my father should say, Alaine, marry
him, I should obey. It is he I should consider first, is it not,
Gerard?”

“Of course. And if he does not say this?”

“I do not know what.”

“Then there is nothing to do but to wait and see. We are young, Alaine,
my sister, and we are very happy here in this little village.”

“Yes, I am, or I would be if I could know my father were well and safe.
You, Gerard, would be happy if it were Mathilde whom you were to bring
home. I understand, my brother, that it would not be so hard to marry
Alaine if Mathilde were promised to another, but she is not, you see,
and therefore I think we will say no more on the subject at present.
I do not wish to do wrong to Papa Louis and Mère Michelle, but we can
wait. Yet I am afraid of yonder man who lies ill at home, and I think
so is Mère Michelle.”

“Not M. Verplanck; the other, you mean.”

“The other who swears that whither I go he will follow. And there is
also Étienne.”

“Myself, Pierre, M. Dupont, and Étienne.” Gerard counted on his
fingers. “How many more, Alaine? Shall we add M. Verplanck?”

She blushed and looked down, but laughed. “You tease me, Gerard. I
will tell you how it is. Of them all it is Pierre alone who loves me.
Étienne, maybe, has a pride in uniting the estates, for I believe if
I were to return it would be that they need not be confiscated, so
Michelle says. He also hates the Protestants, and thinks if he could
win me back it would be a great achievement. He loves me in a way, but
only to the advantage of himself. He desires to rule, to have his way,
and he cannot bear that a girl should prevent that. You, yourself,
Gerard, are my brother, my dearly loved brother; that is enough. M.
Dupont I cannot understand; he professes to adore me, yet there is
something behind it all. I do not understand, I only fear.”

Gerard took her hand and stroked it softly. “Do not be afraid, little
sister. You have left out M. Verplanck,” he said, after a moment’s
reflection.

“M. Verplanck but performed a knightly deed in escorting me, a lost
maiden, to her home; he defended me as he would any other in distress.
He will return to his family when he has recovered, and that will be
the end of that. One thing troubles me, Gerard: why did those men seek
to lure you to a certain spot through me?”

“They are French spies, we think, and seek to learn something to their
advantage through the emissaries sent out to the various villages
and settlements. We uphold Jacob Leisler, the friend of the people,
the upholder of a Protestant king. We have the confidence of those
who believe in him rather than in those aristocrats, Bayard and Van
Cortlandt and Phillipse. There is much that you do not understand, my
sister, and I am not at all sure but that we have enemies nearer home
than France, enemies who would work the ruin of any belonging to our
party.”

“And you will not go with messages to warn the settlements of danger
from the French?”

“I will go where I am sent. Pierre and I will go; Papa Louis, no. We
have another selected in his place.”

“And you start?”

“To-morrow. That is why I wanted to talk to you. I thought should
anything happen to me it might be a comfort to the good parents to know
that we were fiancée.”

“If anything were to happen to you they would not be so easily
comforted. We are brother and sister, Gerard, and I am fiancée to no
one. There is Mère Michelle calling. I have left her there with those
two miserables to nurse, and I chatter here half the afternoon.”




CHAPTER VIII

PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT


The situation in New York at this time was exciting. The air was rife
with reports that the Roman Catholics of other colonies adjacent were
making preparations to march upon New York, and that there were persons
within the city’s borders who were willing to betray it into the hands
of those opposed to Protestantism. It was even rumored that General
Dongan was in the plot, and the people turned to Jacob Leisler, that
impetuous, if indiscreet, upholder of the liberties of the people.
Having first seized the fort, he turned out the English troops,
established himself in the name of the common people, and defied his
enemies. It was quite natural that many of the Huguenots, dreading an
establishment of that power from which they had already suffered so
much, should cling to Leisler’s cause, and that the Dutch militia, all
strong Protestants, should also array themselves against any government
which represented a Jacobite king. Yet there were many office-holders
who because of their being members of the same church as Leisler should
have been above suspicion, but the impetuous Leisler did not believe
in half measures, and pursued, denounced, and arrested in a wholesale
manner. It was all or nothing with him, and honest as his intentions
doubtless were, his hammer-and-nails way of dealing with his political
opponents, his lack of tact, and his uncompromising faculty of making
enemies at last brought about his own downfall.

Without being aware of it those under the roof of the Merciers were
at loggerheads. Papa Louis and Gerard were strong upholders of Jacob
Leisler; Lendert Verplanck was as strongly arrayed on the side of Van
Cortlandt, Bayard, and Phillipse; while François Dupont, an ardent
Frenchman, was ready to do what mischief he could to any foe of his own
country. He considered that no means should be despised if it brought
about the ultimate benefit to France, and he was ready to declare
himself a friend to any cause if by so doing he could accomplish his
ends.

“I love France. How, then? Who of her children does not?” he exclaimed,
when Mère Michelle suspiciously sought to fathom his errand to New
York. “You yourself, madame, and your good husband there, are you
not also the same? And that old man of whom you tell me, he who goes
every day to look toward France and to stretch out his hands in her
direction, émigré though he is, has he forgotten his love for his
country. Of what do you accuse me? Of being a Frenchman instead of a
Dutchman, or an Englishman? Am I not Rouennese, and therefore the more
your compatriot? Judge me not so ill as to think I plot against you,
Mère Michelle.”

“I trust you not, else why did you steal away my child, my Alainette?”

“I steal her away?” He laughed. “’Twas I who rescued her from those
who were her captors. Yes, yes, I know you will not believe that, nor
that when the Indian brought her in I was as surprised as any one.
Those in whose company she found me are no more your enemies than the
Dutch monsieur yonder who receives your good offices. The story is
this: Mademoiselle is carried off by a thieving Indian, who, for hope
of reward, brings her to us with a tale of having rescued her from his
comrades. I desire to aid mademoiselle to a return to her rightful
possessions, and I offer her escape from yonder Dutchman, whose good
intentions I have no reason to know. She, in a spasm of fear, resents
this, and behold the result; I suffer from a gunshot wound, and
monsieur, the Dutchman, suffers from my self-defence, and here we are.”

Michelle, slowly stirring a cup of broth, listened, but was not
convinced by his plausible tale. “You have been too near to death,
monsieur,” she said, “and you should not lie to me.”

“Mon Dieu! and do I lie? I lie on this good bed far too long. When do I
arise, Mother Michelle?”

“Not for some days.”

“And monsieur, the Dutch ox?”

“M. Verplanck will arise to-day and will soon be on his way home.”

The eyes of François shone with satisfaction. “Pray God we have a
chance to meet on other than neutral ground. Pig that he is! I would
fain have a good sword-arm to use when we do meet.”

“Why do you not strive to love your enemies, monsieur?” said Michelle,
with unmoved gravity.

“Strive? I do not strive for such sorry results. He is your enemy as
well as mine. Do you love him?”

“I am not averse to him; he seems a well-disposed and amiable young
man.”

“Who will go hence and do you a harm when he gets a chance. Do you not
know him for an aider and abettor of King James’s minions,--a Jacobite?”

“I know him for nothing but a wounded stranger who is patient and
grateful.”

“And you think I am neither. I may prove to be both some day. To-morrow
I arise from my bed, Mère Michelle, and that Dutchman yonder leaves the
house.”

“Ta-ta-ta, but he is the very evil one, that M. Dupont,” Michelle
confided to her husband the next day. “I am thankful, Louis, that you
remain with us, else I know not what might happen here.”

Papa Louis swelled out his breast in conscious pride of his office as
protector. “I remain, my wife, and you need have no fear; though Gerard
and Pierre have departed, I remain.”

“I trust those two will return.”

“And why not?”

“There are signs and rumors and distresses; one cannot tell who is
safe. If the French be ready to descend upon us we shall, ah, my
husband! we shall again fall under the shadow of persecution.”

Papa Louis spread out his fingers and raised his hand as if to say,
That flies away, that possibility. “For myself I am not anticipating
that,” he said. “The good God who has brought us this far will not
desert us.”

At this moment a white face and tottering form appeared from behind
the curtain at the other side of the room. “Monsieur, you are defying
Providence!” cried Michelle.

“I said I would arise, and I keep my word. Give me your shoulder, good
Papa Mercier, and I will get to that seat by the door. Mon Dieu! but it
is good to see the sunshine again. Ho, there, lubber, I am up before
you!”

He turned toward the bed occupied by Lendert, and Papa Louis chuckled
at his sudden change of expression. “Whom do you address, M. Dupont?
Is it perhaps M. Verplanck? He has been sitting outside the door this
half-hour.”

François ground his teeth. “The pig! How did he manage it?”

“You were asleep and we helped him quietly to dress. You would best sit
here, monsieur.”

“No, nearer, where I can look out. Ah-h, I see why that other sits
there outside; that he may the better converse alone with mademoiselle.
I will be watch-dog, Papa Mercier. You do not guard your daughter any
too well.”

“She needs no overlooking,” spoke up Michelle, sharply, “and it is not
M. Verplanck from whom she must be guarded.”

François laughed mockingly. “We will prove the truth of that later
on.” He dropped trembling into his chair and gazed out upon the autumn
landscape showing that haziness peculiar to the season. Under a large
tree were two figures: Lendert Verplanck and Alaine. The girl with her
hands folded before her was talking earnestly to the young man, with
once in a while a toss of her head toward the house.

“They speak of me, no doubt,” said François.

“You are egotist, monsieur,” laughed Papa Louis as he was about to
leave the room.

François called him back and motioned to a chair opposite. “Sit there,
M. Mercier,” he said. “I have said to Madame Mercier that I may yet be
able to prove myself a grateful, if I have not been a welcome, guest. I
see that mademoiselle has finished her conversation with M. Verplanck.
We are alone?” He glanced around the room. Mère Michelle had gone out
of the back door to attend to her dairy. No one was in sight. François
leaned forward. “M. Mercier, you who are a friend of Jacob Leisler’s
cannot be a friend of Nicholas Bayard’s. It is not a secret that Jacob
Leisler desires to place Nicholas Bayard where his tongue will not run
away with him. He is in hiding, this Bayard, and you who are for the
people would like to discover him I suppose.”

Papa Louis gently patted one knee, but did not commit himself by so
much as a word. The back door softly opened and shut again. François
looked around impatiently. No one was visible. “This Verplanck,” he
continued, “it is at the house of his relatives that you will find
Bayard, or at least he was there, and ten to one some one there can
be bought over to tell where he can be found if he chance to have
left. You have but to escort M. Verplanck to this house, where he will
probably go first, and behold who is likely to come out to welcome him
back but Nicholas Bayard. You say nothing; you ride away; at night you
return and capture one or both.”

“At the expense of doing wrong to our guest, who delivered our daughter
from danger.”

“Danger! I tell you not danger, a misunderstanding, a misconstruction.
What do you know of this stranger? Whither was he taking her? What
cause have you for thinking you would have had her restored to you by
his hands? I, for myself, I have only her good at heart. I pray you, M.
Mercier, think of your leader who would deliver you from a papistical
king. Is Bayard not one of those whom you call aristocrats and papists?
This fellow, too, is one of the same stamp. If you will I can arrange
as pretty a plot as you could wish, and the people, the people whom
Leisler leads, will be free of one Romanist in disguise.” He watched
his listener narrowly.

Papa Louis did not change expression, but sat absorbed in thought. “One
does not send away a guest to follow him with disaster,” he replied,
after a time.

“Guest! A guest perforce. Who asks you to bring disaster upon a guest?
He is one no longer when he leaves your roof, and it is of the man
Bayard of whom we chiefly speak. Well, you do not care to prove your
friendship for your cause. You are not a very stanch champion, M.
Mercier. Perhaps you, too, are a Jacobite, and are not without ambition
to show yourself a partisan of these aristocrats. A man of your
intellect might well expect to be admitted into what the adherents of
Leisler call the court circle.”

“No, no, that is no ambition of mine!” cried Papa Louis, vehemently.
“I assure you I am not of that party at all. I will consult with my
friends, monsieur. I will go to Manhatte to-morrow.”

“And when does M. Verplanck depart?”

“He will not be strong enough for some days to come. There is nothing
to be gained by haste, monsieur. I will consider what you have said,
meanwhile remembering that you are no friend of the young man who has
shared our attentions with you. Sit there and rest. For myself I have
remained too long; I must go to my work. Without Gerard my hands are
full.”

“I could go a step farther, I think,” returned François. “Why may I not
sit outside as well as yon indolent churl? I’ll warrant he has not an
idea in his head as he sits there like a blinking owl. Your shoulder
again, M. Mercier, and I can creep along.”

As the two figures disappeared out of the door, from behind the
curtains peeped Alaine’s face. She shook her finger at the two. “Plots,
Papa Louis, plots. I will not have you mixed up in them, neither will I
allow good M. Bayard to suffer; and as for you, you scheming monster,
I am not sure what is bad enough for you. Go to Manhatte if you must,
go to-morrow, Papa Louis, we can manage without you. Adieu!” And she
lightly blew him a kiss from the ends of her fingers.

“To Manhatte!” cried Mère Michelle, when her husband announced his
intention of an early start. “And for why? Politics? Many a better man
has been ruined by them. For my part I advise you to remain at home and
watch your garden, your fields, your family. It is here you are needed
and not in Manhatte. I pray you do not mix yourself up in affairs. It
is better to be the small, the undistinguished, so you are overlooked,
otherwise place yourself in the way, at a turn of the wheel, lo! you
are crushed.”

Papa Louis shook his head. “I must go,” he said.

“And who will protect us?”

“I trust there will be no need, and even if there were, there are
neighbors besides messieurs our guests. They have both recovered
sufficiently to handle a gun.”

“To shoot each other? No, no. I will not be responsible for them.”

“Gerard returns this afternoon. You will be safe enough then.” Papa
Louis spoke rather shortly. He did not half like his errand, yet was
not inclined to give it up.

Alaine, from the door, watched him depart. She returned to the big
living-room to hear Mère Michelle expostulating with François. “But,
monsieur, I assure you it is still very early. You will weary before
the day is out. I beg of you to rest till you have breakfasted.” She
emerged from behind the curtains. “He will wear me to a bone, that
one there,” she made her complaint to Alaine as she stirred about to
prepare the breakfast. “M. Verplanck arises like a gentleman without
discourse. He takes my advice; if I say, ‘Remain in bed,’ he remains.”

“And this morning?”

“He has already arisen, as you may perceive.”

Alaine ate her breakfast silently; once or twice she raised her eyes
to M. Verplanck, who sat opposite, and when Mère Michelle went to the
buttery, she said in a quick whisper, “Monsieur, I wish to speak to
you; much depends upon it. I go to the garden.”

Into Lendert’s sleepy blue eyes came a flash of understanding. He was
not long in following Alaine to the garden. She stood waiting for him
with something like impatience. “Monsieur Verplanck,” she began, “you
must leave us to-day.”

“So?” he said, with a smile.

“Yes, they are plotting against you; they will follow you. M. Bayard
will be discovered if you wait.”

“Who will do this?”

Alaine was silent for a moment, then she raised her truthful eyes. “I
overheard that one in there talking to Papa Louis. He, dear man, does
not understand, or at least he is, you perceive, upon the other side,
and--and---- Oh, monsieur, you will keep my secret as I do yours? You
will not inform?”

“I should be base to do such a thing when I have been sheltered and
cared for as a son or a brother. No, I could not do other than keep
your secret, and again I would defend any one of this family if my
opportunity came. I will go at once if it will please you.”

“Your horse is in the stable; I will help you to get him. I wish you
were altogether strong, monsieur.”

“I am well enough; there is nothing to fear. I will not say which road
I take lest your good conscience trouble you if you are asked. We must
meet again; I go with regret. May I kiss your hand?”

Alaine with a blush extended her little brown fingers. He pressed them
fervently, raised them to his lips and murmured, “We meet again; yes,
we meet again.”

“Adieu, monsieur,” Alaine whispered, her eyes dropping before his gaze.
“You--you are not an ox nor a stupid,” she laughed, “though that one in
there does call you so.”

He laughed. “I thank you, gracious little lady; I cannot find words to
say what you are; it would take a life in which to find words to praise
you as I ought.”

“Ah!” Alaine sighed. There was a kindling up of the smouldering fire
in the blue eyes which did not remove their gaze from her face. This
young man was something different from the sombre Pierre or the bold
François. The very difference pleased the girl; this calmness attracted
her, and for an instant she allowed her hand to rest in the big fingers
of the young Dutchman, then she withdrew it and repeated, “Adieu,
monsieur; I must not stay.”

He only nodded in reply, still keeping his eyes fixed upon her.

“Shall I help you to get your horse?”

“No, I can get him.”

“Then--adieu, monsieur.”

She retreated a step; he followed her, that light in his eyes gathering
strength and fascinating her so that a little grieving sigh she
breathed as his arms enfolded her closer, closer, and his lips pressed
hers. “Too sweet thou art for me to leave thee,” he murmured.

Trembling, half crying, her heart beating tumultuously, Alaine thrust
him from her. “This is very wrong, monsieur. I should not---- Oh, what
is it I have done?” The tears had their way, and she leaned against the
side of the barn, hiding her face.

But again she felt those enfolding arms and kisses showered on her
brow, her hair. “Thou dost not love me?” Lendert whispered.

“I must not, I must not.”

“But I love thee, so brave, so beautiful. Where would Lendert Verplanck
be but for thee?”

“In heaven, I hope,” returned Alaine, with an irresistible impulse.

He held her off and regarded her gravely. The autumn sunlight found the
ruddy golds and browns of her hair, a soft peach-like hue bloomed on
her cheek, her sweet red lips were parted. “Thou dost love me as I love
thee, as I love thee, so beautiful?”

This time Alaine allowed her head to rest on the broad shoulder. “I
love thee; I will be true in saying it, monsieur,” she whispered.

“Not that, but Lendert.”

“Then listen, Lendert. I must not love thee, for, alas! I am half
promised to another, I do not know but to two others. You must go,
Lendert, but first I will tell thee how it is. Those two, my adopted
parents, wish me to marry Gerard, and there is another who has loved
me this year past. Gerard loves Mathilde, but Pierre, poor Pierre, so
good, so true, he has none but me. He has suffered much, and to him I
have promised my hand if he can find a way to restore my father to me,
and if my father desires me to marry him.”

Lendert softly stroked her hair back from her forehead while he
listened, but he made no comment.

“And therefore, you see, Lendert, I should not love you,” she continued.

He lifted her arms to clasp his neck and looked down with that
compelling glance. “I love thee, Alaine, and thou lovest me; there
is nothing else in the world to remember. It is not wrong to love,
and we have not been able to do else than choose each other from out
of the entire universe, then what? We love, and that is all. I will
tell thee a confession, too; my mother wishes me to marry one of her
choosing, the daughter of a friend and distant relative. I was content
to consider her wishes, although I made no promise, but now I have
seen thee, sweet Alaine, I cannot do it. As I lay in bed and heard
thy voice, and saw thy face day after day, it grew, this love, and I
thought, If she can love this big clumsy ox, as the Frenchman calls
him, I will love her forever; I will marry none other; but I did not
hope as yet, Alaine, that thou couldst love Lendert Verplanck, who
loves thee so dearly.”

“I did not know, either,” sighed Alaine; “I did not know till now when
thou must leave me.”

“When I will not leave thee. I do not go to-day.”

“Oh, but thou must.”

“Not at all; it is all a needless alarm. When I go I shall take another
road, and shall go where I select. I have nothing to take me directly
home, nor even to those my relatives. None will wonder at my delay. The
good Mother Mercier has sent messages more than once by a safe hand,
and they know I am faring well. I will not leave thee to-day, Alaine; I
wish to say more, to hear more.”

“But I must not stay here so long; Mère Michelle will wonder, though
she knows I am taking some of Gerard’s duties. Since he and Papa Louis
are away, I must do more.”

“And I will help thee.”

“She would be shocked, that good mother, so shocked if she knew what I
have been doing. I am a very wicked girl.”

He laughed softly. “Wicked is it to love?”

“No, but I should not have told it. Thou shouldst have gone to Papa
Louis very properly, and I should have been surprised when he told me
and have behaved with great decorum. Perhaps they would not have told
me at all; they might have said, You cannot have her, M. Verplanck; she
is to be betrothed to Gerard.”

“And then this hour would have been lost to us. We would never have
lived it. Art sorry, Alaine, sorry that it was not as thou hast
described? Art sorry, sweet Alaine?”

“No,” she confessed, “I am not, for, Lendert, I, too, have been
learning to love ever since that moment when thou wast wounded in the
wood.”

They stood looking into each other’s eyes, overcome by the remembrance
of the fateful hour; then a cloud came over Alaine’s face; “Poor
Pierre,” she murmured, as she moved away to finish the tasks left for
her to do. Lendert kept by her side and was able to give her such aid
that it was not long before she returned to Mère Michelle, who more
than once had gone to the door to look after the delinquents.

“You have been long, Alaine,” she said, sharply.

“I know,” replied Alaine, meekly. “We were talking, M. Verplanck and I,
and then he helped me.”

“You must not allow it again. It is not proper, nor a maidenly thing to
permit.” Mère Michelle spoke in her most reproving tones. “Where did
you leave M. Verplanck?”

“In the barn, attending to his horse.”

“They will soon be gone, those two,” Michelle went on, in a less severe
voice, “and I shall not be sorry. I do not regret that we have been
able, with God’s help, to mend their wounds, though the one is as if he
were a child of the evil one; the other, stolid Dutchman though he is,
cannot be disliked.”

Alaine smiled at the word stolid; if Michelle could have seen her
stolid Dutchman an hour ago! She drew so long and quivering a sigh
that Michelle stopped her spinning and looked at her sharply.

“I would you and Gerard were safely married,” she said; “another year
and you should be.”

“He is too young, that brother of mine,” Alaine answered, “not yet
twenty, Mère Michelle, and it would be wiser if he were possessed of
more before he takes to himself a wife.”

“So Louis says, and so would I say were it not for the eyes of young
men who trouble me by looking too long at you.”

“Whose eyes?”

“Pierre Boutillier’s and that evil creature’s yonder, out of doors
there, not to mention this mynheer’s.”

Alaine was silent, but she gave a quick glance to where François sat
under the tree. She, too, would feel more comfortable when he had
departed. How was it that, openly culpable as he had been, he had yet
almost persuaded them all that he had contrived no ill again her? “Yet
a wicked, deceitful maid am I,” she reflected. “I am this moment posing
as an innocent before Michelle; I have let Pierre go with my promise,
while out there is a man I have known only a few weeks, and to whom
I have given my inconstant heart. No, no, Lendert, it is my constant
heart which I give you.” Mère Michelle had left her alone, and she had
taken up the spinning. With the whir of the wheel her thoughts kept
time. “I love you, love you, love you, Lendert Verplanck. I see you
out there with the sun shining on your yellow hair, under the blue sky,
blue like your eyes. Lendert, who loves me, who kissed me, who held me
in his strong arms. I feel so safe, so happy, Lendert, with you near. I
wish you might never go, Lendert Verplanck, with your yellow hair, your
beautiful smile, and your broad shoulders. Monkey under the tree, if
you but knew how insignificant you look beside him you would cease your
mowing and grimacing.”

François was beckoning to Lendert, who viewed him imperturbably from
his point of vantage within the stable-yard. “Here, oaf, boor, ox,
stolid ox! By St. Michael! it is as much as one’s life is worth to
bring an idea into that thick skull. He does well out there with the
cattle in the barn-yard, for he looks at me as if he had no notion of
what I am. I might be a stick or a stone for all the intelligence in
his perception of me. The devil! I cannot rise without assistance and
he does not budge. Here, you, I want your arm.”

Lendert, over the fence, looked at him composedly. “I want both my arms
myself,” he said. “You’d better get the man who deprived you of the use
of yours to supply you with what you want.”

François laughed grimly. “He actually tries to display a sense of
humor, the elephant; he would be light of speech. Eh bien, monsieur,
stay where you are; mademoiselle there must help me, for go indoors
will I.”

At this Lendert came forward.

François laughed maliciously. “It is because you fear the word to
mademoiselle, I see, and not of compassion for me. Well, monsieur, it
will not be long that the occasion for rivalry exists; you leave us,
and then----”

“And then?” said Lendert, a heavier set to his mouth.

“And then--she is mine.”

“You lie,” returned Lendert, quietly.

“Ox! I would fell you to the earth were I able. As it is, you shall
see. I owe you something, but not thanks, and I will have my payment
for the pains I have endured, and the payment I shall take will be
mademoiselle herself.”

Lendert made a sudden movement, at which François gave a cry of pain.
“Stupid ox! to make a misstep! However, it goes in with the rest, but
the payment is sure; digest that with your grass and hay and stubble,
ox.” He sank heavily into the chair ready for him inside. The hum of
the wheel was scarcely stilled, but Alaine had vanished. Lendert smiled
to himself and went out.

“Good mother,” he said, when he had found Michelle, “your patient
yonder needs you.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I am beyond the necessity of your kind ministrations. I depart. I may
not return for some time, but I take my leave with many thanks, and
I shall never forget. Remember, good Mother Mercier, that here is a
friend if you ever have need of one.”

“And you go at once?”

“Before night.”

Michelle kissed him on each cheek. “Adieu then, my friend, may good
fortune attend you.”




CHAPTER IX

THREE PARTINGS


Alaine, singing in the garden where she was gathering some late
vegetables, saw Lendert coming. She had longed, yet dreaded to see him
again. The color flew to her face as he drew near, and she moved away a
few steps. “If you will stay there and help me with these beans I will
tell you more of myself, some things which you do not know,” she said.

Lendert took the place assigned him. Michelle, from the house, watched
the pair; Lendert slowly picking from the vines the pods to fill
a basket standing upon the walk, and Alaine with quick bird-like
movements adding to the store. But Michelle did not know all that
Alaine was saying, that she was disclosing herself as Alaine Hervieu,
that she was telling of her great hope that her father might still be
living, and of Pierre’s interest in the quest.

To all this Lendert listened mutely. When the basket was filled the two
carried it together to the barn. Michelle frowned and shook her head,
still keeping an eye upon the barn door. What if she could have heard
Lendert say, “I think I will go, my Alaine. Thou, my beloved, must
believe in me even if thou dost not see me in a long time. We love,
thou and I, but what is best to do I must think, and I must leave thee,
beloved one, for a time, but I leave my heart behind.”

“And mine thou takest with thee.”

“They will not marry thee to another meanwhile?”

“No, no.”

“Yet thy father?”

“If he returns it will be his right to bestow my hand; that is what I
tell myself and what I have told Pierre.”

“And this Pierre?”

“He has gone away; when he returns we are to speak of how to obtain
my father’s release. I would have gone myself,--I meant to,--but
now--Lendert, Lendert, I was ready to do this even a week ago.”

“And now, is it I who keeps thee from it?”

“It is thou,” she whispered.

He kissed her hair, her eyes, her lips. “Now I know thou dost love me,
and thou shalt understand one day how I value thy love. We must part,
my beloved, but I will come again. In the mean time be thou patient and
constant.”

One last embrace and he was gone, leaving Alaine with a miserable sort
of happiness. It seemed as if her heart would burst with this new-born
love and with the memory of the parting. All these weeks, day by day,
this flower of love had been growing and she was scarcely aware of it;
now it had burst into bloom, and she was bewildered and faint with its
sweetness. She threw herself down on the hay and pressed her hands over
her burning eyes.

She was aroused by a sudden stealthy sound. She lifted her head
slightly and peeped between the spears of hay to see the sinuous form
of an Indian skulking past the barn. With almost as secret a movement
she crept to a point where she could watch his further actions. There
was Michelle busy in the fields husking corn; the house was left for
occupancy to François Dupont. Was this known to the red-skin? Was it
François whom he sought? She watched him make his way to the house and
insinuate his lithe body in at the door. “He may be simply one of the
friendly creatures come with a message or to get work in the fields,”
she thought; “but no, he would not have then approached in this
stealthy way.”

At last she determined to busy herself openly in the garden, where
there were still more beans to be gathered and where Michelle, in
the field beyond, could see her. She was hard at work pulling the
rattling pods when suddenly by her side appeared the Indian. She had
been furtively watching, but had not seen him leave the house, and his
appearance startled her. He paused only long enough to slip a paper
into her hand, and then, gliding along by the fence, was lost in the
woods beyond.

Wonderingly Alaine unfolded the paper. On it was written, “If you would
say farewell, meet me to-morrow at sunset at the cave where is the old
fireplace. The ship will be ready.--Pierre.”

Alaine held the paper in her shaking hand. To leave now with Lendert’s
love warming her heart; with this new hope beautifying her life! She
gazed with staring eyes at the words. “Oh, my father, my father!” she
moaned. “But you said, Pierre, it would do no good, that they would not
accept me in his stead.” She stood very still with the paper clinched
in her hand. “Perhaps,” she thought, after reflection, “he means that
he goes himself to see what can be done. The good, noble Pierre. I will
meet him; I will give him every sou I have saved. I will bless you, my
good Pierre, but I cannot reward you as I said I would. No, Lendert, I
cannot, I cannot, even though my father bade me. I must be honest and
tell Pierre that. But oh, my father, who will then deliver you?” She
fell on her knees and sobbed out the words.

Michelle, beyond in the cornfield, saw her. “Something disturbs my
little one,” she said to herself. “There are human wolves to be kept
from my lamb. As soon as Louis returns that one in there must go. I can
see that my little one fears him; I will not have it so.” She raised
her basket of yellow corn and bore it toward the barn, taking care to
pass Alaine on the way. “Tears in your eyes, my pretty one,” she said,
putting down her basket. “What is this?”

“I was thinking of my father,” faltered Alaine, and going to Michelle
she put her arms around her. “Dear mother, comfort me; it is a wide
world and there is much trouble in it.”

“And much goodness.”

“Yes, when I think of Papa Louis and you, and Gerard and” Pierre she
would have added, but she substituted “our good pastor. Papa Louis
returns to-night?”

“To-morrow; and then adieu to monsieur the wolf yonder.”

Alaine’s face brightened. “I am glad, glad, Michelle; he has brought us
evil days. Before he came how peaceful and content I was.”

“And now?”

The girl moved her head wearily. “I am too distraught by hopes and
fears and dreads.”

“We will stop this,” thought Michelle. “She shall be safely married to
Gerard before the winter is over. There, there, my child,” she said,
aloud, “once we are rid of our wolf your happy days will come back. God
forbid I should commit murder in my heart, but to you I confess that
I would not grieve if the ship which carries this man back to France
should lose him overboard.”

“Oh, Michelle, Michelle! You wicked?”

“I but spoke what more than one thinks,” returned Michelle. “You shall
not see him again if I can arrange it. Go to Mathilde Duval, ask there
that they lend me the little Jean, and remain till this one goes. I
with Jean shall be safe till Gerard or Louis returns. We have but one
guest now, though the worst of all he be. Yet, we must be patient,
child, patient.”

Alaine was only too glad of escape. If they would but wed Mathilde
to Gerard instead of to Pierre; but then what good would that do?
Pierre would still be left. No, she must be patient, patient, as Papa
Louis and Mère Michelle were always telling her. Patience, the great
characteristic of the Huguenots, she must cultivate it, she would try
to do right when the moment for action came.

François, now that he was rid of his rival, had no idea of departing
too hastily. The next morning he was groaning on his bed, declaring
that he had taken cold and that he suffered as much as ever. Michelle
submitted to the inevitable with none too good a grace, and felt
obliged to send for Alaine. There was no help for it, but it was a
disappointment, for she had endured a long season of nursing and felt
that she deserved release. Beyond this, with Papa Louis and Gerard both
away there were added tasks for the two women, and Michelle’s face
wore its grimmest expression. Whenever she could give Alaine tasks
out of the house she did so, and it was not often that the girl was
seen indoors. François clamored to have his screen removed, but this
Michelle refused to do. She could not take the time, she said.

And so it was that when Papa Louis returned the next day it was to find
that François was again on his back, but, to his great relief, that
Lendert Verplanck had departed, therefore the suggestion of François
could not be carried out. “I am no Jacobite,” he told François, “and I
believe in the good intentions of Jacob Leisler, but he has resorted
to strong measures, and has gone so far that he cannot retreat. I have
talked the matter over with my good friends, and though one is of one
opinion and one is of another, the good God has settled my part in the
matter by removing temptation. I return, M. Verplanck has departed, the
plot ends. As for yourself, monsieur----”

“As for me----”

“You remain? To help us if we need to resist the attacks of your
countrymen from Canada?”

François was moodily silent and remained so, in strange contrast to his
former loquacity, so that Michelle’s fears were aroused and she warned
Alaine. “He is very mute these days, that wolf, but his white teeth are
strong and his eyes have still their evil gleam. My lamb must not go
near him.”

“I will keep out of the way,” replied Alaine. “I am not anxious to
spend my time in the company of M. Dupont.” And she contrived so well
that he seldom saw her.

She found little difficulty in making her escape the day of Papa
Louis’s return. She ran down to the well-known spot where Pierre was
to meet her. What plan had he been able to contrive? She found him
standing by the water’s edge gazing out upon the sound. He did not
hear her approach, and she stood for a moment regarding him. His grave
face wore a sadder look than usual; the quiet, firm lips were pressed
together determinedly, but there was a singularly sweet expression in
the face, and Alaine sighed. Poor Pierre, how sad a fate that had not
let her love him!

At the sound of his name softly spoken he turned, and a flush of
pleasure lighted up his dark eyes. “Alaine, Alainette,” he said,
holding out his hands.

She came and laid hers in them. “Are you going away, Pierre? Is that
why you wished to say farewell?”

“I go, but a longer journey than you thought. I go for you, Alaine.”

“Oh, no, no; I cannot let you do that.”

“For your father’s deliverance. I shall bring him back to you if he be
alive or I never return.”

“Pierre, Pierre, I cannot have you do this thing for me. Tell me what
you intend. Suppose he, the one who called himself your master, should
discover you, what then?”

“That is it, but I shall first have gained your father’s release.”

“No, no, I cannot consent; even for that I could not let you take such
risks.”

“What matters it? A little longer, a little shorter time and all is
over. And life to me without Alaine, what would it be anywhere? The
supreme joy, the wonder of happiness if I should succeed and return to
find you mine, Alaine, it is worth the deepest misery I could suffer.
To see you happy, even if I miss a supreme joy myself, is enough.”

“Do not, do not say that,” she murmured. “Ah, Pierre, if you but knew
how unworthy I am of such love.”

“It is how I must love. Your happiness at any cost. I have seen tears
in your eyes because of your father’s condition, and could I hesitate
if mine might be the hand to wipe them away? No, no, beloved, I would
be a slave forever for your sweet sake; it would glorify my days to
wake in the morning and say, She is happy there in her home, my Alaine;
she smiles, she sings, and God has let me give her this happiness.
Whatever my body might suffer, my heart would sing with yours.”

Alaine’s tears fell softly. “Oh, Pierre, Pierre, such great love, and
I----”

He interrupted her hastily. “I do not ask yours. I ask only to do this
for you.” He laid his hand on her head and smoothed back the curling
locks that strayed from under her little cap. “Sweet eyes, dear lips.”
He gave a long, shivering sigh. “I ask no promise, sweet.”

Alaine lifted her tearful eyes. “I ought to give it, Pierre, for I do
not forget that I told you I would marry whom my father should desire.”

“I know that, but I would not have you bound even so much, for if he
returned without me, or if neither returned, it would be a sad waiting.
A year, Alaine; if at the end of a year you do not see your father, or
if you do not hear from him or from me, you must be free to do whatever
seems well and good.”

“But your plan, Pierre, tell me more of it.”

“I go to Manhatte to-morrow to sail by a vessel going to Guadaloupa.”
He did not tell her that he had shipped as a common sailor and would
thus work his passage, saving his own earnings for the use of Alaine’s
father, should he need them.

“And there, Pierre, you will be sure to find him.”

“I will find him if he be alive.”

She put both hands in his. “Oh, my good Pierre, so good. I cannot thank
you enough. I feel that I ought not to allow this, but----”

He shook his head. “It would be no use to refuse, Alaine, I should go;
if not now, at some other time. You cannot keep me. I desire to do this
thing for you. Do not forbid it and destroy my only joy in life.”

“Then I will not, but I will do my best while you are away. I will
think of you and pray for you always, night and day.”

“And if I do not return, think of me then sometimes, even then, Alaine.”

“I will. I will always think of you, Pierre, so noble, so brave, so
unselfish.”

“Hush, hush, dear one, it is for my own pleasure that I go. I ask but
this: one kiss to bear with me as a remembrance, perhaps all I shall
ever ask of you.”

Alaine almost quailed at the request. She had promised to be true to
one lover; the remembrance of his caresses, his kisses, still haunted
her day and night. But this man, ready to lay down his life for her,
could she refuse him? It was a sacred duty that she should send him
away with all of happiness and hope that she could offer. She mutely
raised her face to his, and he kissed her as it were a sacrament he
took. “Adieu, my star. Alaine, I am yours, living or dead. I love you
forever. A long adieu, sweet Alaine; it grows late and you will be
missed. Leave me here. Once more, adieu!”

She gave him her hands again and looked long and wistfully into his
face. “Adieu, Pierre,” she said at last and turned away. Once she
looked back and he smiled; but as she passed out of sight, he staggered
back against the rocky ledge and leaned there white to the lips. And
Alaine, as she went on her way with bowed head, struggled to keep down
the rising cry of her heart, “Lendert, Lendert, I must be false to you;
I must put you forever from my thoughts. If Pierre, for love of me,
can do this great thing, ought I, for my father’s sake,--for Pierre’s
sake,--to do less? Forgive me, Lendert, God knows I love you.”

And so it was that Pierre sailed away, and in time François recovered,
so that before the trees were bare he was well enough to take his
departure too. “It is but for a time, mademoiselle,” he said before
parting. “I do not go far, and you shall see me again; believe me,
it will not be so very long before you see me again. I have an acute
perception and I watch; that Pierre has gone, no one seems to know why
or where, and that other, our friend of large proportions, does not
appear, therefore I feel that I need have no fear. The boy Gerard has
eyes and ears for no one but the saucy damsel across the way, and you
and he will not marry yet, in spite of Michelle. So ’tis but au revoir,
mademoiselle, and I shall see you before we see these trees again bare.
I trust that I shall some day prove to you all that I am not ungrateful
for your care of me, and to Michelle most of all.” He bowed in the
direction of Michelle, who had come forward and now stood stiff and
uncompromising.

“You owe us nothing, monsieur, but the consideration that will leave us
to ourselves,” she said. “Show us your good will so much as to do that,
and we are content.”

He laughed. “I should be as impolite as that other patient of yours who
has never had the grace to come back for a friendly call.” He glanced
at Alaine as he spoke, and the color forsook the girl’s face.

But Michelle took up the cudgels. “He was in no way under obligation to
do that, M. Dupont. This is not the city of Paris nor of Rouen, where
to make a call is a small business. These are troublous times, and our
guest does us greater favor by protecting us from an invading foe than
he could by his presence here.”

“Oho! so that is what you think,” returned François. “M. Mercier here
could tell you another tale. He is busy, that friend of yours, in
helping M. Bayard and others of the same stripe to keep secure. He is
not fond of the Black People, nor is M. Bayard, you know.” He watched
Alaine narrowly, but she had gone around to Michelle’s side and stood
leaning upon the good woman’s broad shoulder.

“Well, well,” put in Papa Louis, cheerfully, “we will not quarrel when
our parting is so near. Whatever the times bring forth, the condition
of affairs is due neither to us nor to our visitors. We have a common
foe to fight and must make common cause at last. You, monsieur, have
given us reason to believe that you are with us in that, and why
dispute anything else.”

“In faith, what else could I do?” returned François, shrugging his
shoulders. “When one is on his back and scarce able to lift a finger,
he must promise anything that will save his scalp, be it from Iroquois
or Mohawk. I am out of any sort of a fight, as you see, not yet being
able to hold sword or pistol.”

For all that, Michelle warned Papa Louis not to let monsieur escape
without being sure of his destination, and to be careful that he did
not at once join the French to discover to them something which might
be detrimental to the colony. But François either suspected or else
had his own reasons for slipping away quietly, for one night, after
making something of a display of his plans for leaving the next day, he
went out, ostensibly to see one of the neighbors, and did not return.
Just when and how he left the village no one seemed to know.




CHAPTER X

ON SHIPBOARD


As the weeks passed Alaine counted them, and as to one month was added
two, three, and at last six months had gone by, she began to watch and
listen and hope for a word from Pierre. If he had succeeded, at any day
now she might hope to see her father. She resolutely determined to put
from her all thought of Lendert Verplanck, for not a word nor sign had
come from him. “He loved me and left me,” she sighed. “It will be hard
to forget, but he marries that other whom his mother has chosen, and
for me, I marry Pierre, God willing.”

More than once Mère Michelle brought up her darling project. “There is
no reason, Alaine, why you and Gerard should not marry, or at least be
acknowledged fiancée,” she would say.

“But the spring will soon be here, and we shall all be busy.”

“That evil wolf may return, and finding you still unmarried, will seek
to devour you. Pierre has left to seek his fortune elsewhere,--see
Mathilde deserted,--and if Gerard in the heat of his youth should
become fretful of the quiet life here, he might do the same; but with a
wife and home interests he would be so bound by silken chains that he
would not desire to leave us.”

“Ah, but, maman, these are uncertain times; look how the colony is rent
by strife; and suppose the Jacobites once more rise into power, we
might again find it necessary to take flight, and what then? No, no,
neither Gerard nor I wish to leave you, and on that score you need have
no fear. When this question of government and war is settled it will be
time enough to think of marriage.” And Michelle, for the time being,
would be silenced.

The destruction of Schenectady by the French and Indians, the arrival
of Frontenac as governor of Canada, and the alarming prospect suggested
absorbed the attention of even those in the little French settlement
of New Rochelle. These who threatened them were their own countrymen,
and to them this was civil war, yet they believed in Jacob Leisler. Had
he not conveyed these lands to them, and was he not the friend of the
people? And did not this Frontenac come armed with terrible orders? It
would require one of whose religious beliefs there could be no doubt to
be leader for those who shuddered at a possibility of a return of the
persecutions from which they had fled.

“Alas! Alas!” cried Michelle, striking her hands together, when Papa
Louis, with a grave face, told her of the disputes among the different
factions. “It is from bad to worse. Be content to remain at home,
Louis, and mix not up with affairs of government. Your head may yet be
placed on a pike, and how will you be better off than in that France
from which you have escaped? Till your fields, say your prayers, and
keep out of this.”

Papa Louis decided to follow this advice, and, in spite of the ferment
in the city, affairs went on quietly enough at home while summer came
and went.

“Months since Pierre left and no news of him,” Alaine said to Gerard,
as the summer waned. “I fear I shall never see my father again. You,
who alone know why Pierre has gone, can give me no comfort. I have sent
him into slavery, and perhaps to his death.”

“No, no, Alaine, that is a foolish way to look at it. He went of his
own accord, so he told me, and, the good Pierre, he bade me try to
comfort you. It may take a long time to effect his purpose. There is no
reason for despair as yet. The vessels are slow in going and coming,
and who knows what time and caution he must use in seeking your father?
Even to-day a message may be on its way to you.”

Alaine plucked up courage, and with better heart went singing to her
work. Michelle and Papa Louis were in the fields, and Gerard had just
come to the pump to quench his thirst. “Even now he may be on his way
to me,” Alaine repeated. “If he returns it means--what may it not
mean?” The blood rushed to her face and brow. “Alas, my Lendert,” she
murmured, but instantly she shook her head as if to put away too
intrusive a thought and continued her spinning.

She had hardly recommenced her song when the latch of the door was
lifted, and she saw before her a tall Indian. He gravely unrolled from
a piece of deer-skin a small packet and handed it to her, then turned
and walked out without a word. With trembling fingers Alaine undid the
packet. On a bit of bark a few words were written: “Meet me at the cave
at sunset. I have news for you. Tell no one, but come alone, or there
may be danger for one you love.--Pierre.”

Alaine stared at the bark, turned it over, and then hid it away. It
was as Gerard had said; a message was truly on its way to her; one
would almost think it a prophecy. It seemed as if the moments were
doubly long that day, but at last the hours of labor were over, and the
girl, all impatient expectation, stole down to the well-known spot.
She wondered why the secrecy. What had happened? Why did not Pierre
approach boldly, there in the village where all his friends were? She
was anxious, apprehensive, yet so eager that she ran all the way to
the shore, hoping no one else would be there. She glanced around; all
was still; the place was deserted, for the weary workers in the fields
did not care to do other than rest from their labors. Upon the water a
little way out rocked a large sailing-vessel, its white sails catching
the evening light. Perhaps--she hardly dared think it--her father was
on board; it might be that it was on his account there was need of
secrecy. She looked around; no one was near; but presently from the
vessel a little boat put out, and when it touched the shore a man
leaped ashore.

“You await Pierre Boutillier?” he asked, in good French.

“Yes,” Alaine replied, eagerly.

“He asks if you will let me conduct you to yonder ship, where he can
confer with you without observation.”

“Why did he not come himself?” Alaine asked, drawing back.

“He had the misfortune to trip over a coil of rope and sprain his
ankle. He is clumsy, that Pierre.” The man looked at her with a bright,
quizzical smile.

Alaine drew herself up. “He is not, then, but he is no sailor, rather a
husbandman. Lead the way. I follow.” She spoke with a haughty air, and
the man started on ahead, but cast frequent glances over his shoulder
to see if she were yet behind him. She came on with a light tread and
stepped without hesitation into the little boat, which quickly took her
out to the larger vessel anchored beyond. She was then helped on board
and conducted to a cabin, seeing no one on her way but a few sailors
lounging on deck.

“I will tell monsieur that you have arrived,” said her conductor, “and
myself will assist him hither.” He then withdrew.

“It is strange,” thought Alaine, “that Pierre was not on deck to meet
me. He is perhaps badly hurt; he is unfortunate, poor Pierre. Only
for my father would I have consented to come. Why does he not arrive,
that Pierre?” She grew impatient as the moments passed, and at last
determined to go herself and seek her friend. She tried the door of
the little room; it was fast. “Pierre! Pierre!” she called. There
was no response. Overhead she could hear the tread of the sailors or
the dragging of ropes across the deck. “Pierre! Pierre!” Outside the
sea-gulls dipped their free wings in the dancing waves. She could see
their white breasts as they swept past the open port-hole. “He cannot
have forgotten me,” she murmured. “What does this mean?”

Suddenly she raised her hands above her head with a great cry. This
was a plot, and who had designed it? She sank moaning to the floor,
and sat there, her hands tightly clasped, till the glory of the golden
sky paled to gray, then the soft twilight descended; night came on.
The girl did not move except once in a while to ease her position. The
sound of sailors singing, the shuffle of feet, the rattle of chains,
the splash of the water against the sides of the vessel, these were
what reached her ears strained to catch the least sound. Darkness
had settled down, when, by the tossing of the ship and the increased
movement overhead, she discovered that the vessel was moving. She
started up with a great cry and then a fury of despair seized her. She
beat on the door, shrieking, “Poltroons! Knaves! Thieves! Thieves! Is
there no one here to listen? I go mad! I kill myself, you there, who
will not rescue me!”

The door opened at last; a lantern swung before her; its rays flashed
on the face of the man she feared; François Dupont stood before her.
She gave one wild cry of fear and horror, but the next moment bravely
faced him. “You!” she said, in such scorn that he made a step back. In
a moment he drew nearer, and she saw his face wore its usual smile of
assurance and audacity.

“It is I in truth, Mademoiselle Alaine. You remember I vowed that we
should not be separated long. ‘Whither thou goest,’ I said. I am forced
to travel, behold you are here to accompany me. Since you would not
have come by invitation from me, I was obliged to consider myself the
proxy of M. Boutillier, for all is fair in a case of this kind. I am
not ungenerous, fair Alaine, as you will see; I give you the key to
your cabin; you shall not be disturbed. I regret the voyage is not to
your liking, but that is all I regret. I desire to take you to Canada
with me as my wife. We have a good priest aboard who can unite us. You
refuse?”

“I refuse,” Alaine replied, curtly, but with trembling lips.

“I feared that you would not accept me at once, nor even upon two or
three urgings. We go to Canada, as I said; if by the time we reach
that place you still consider my suit unfavorably, we can extend the
voyage; we can go to France, to Rouen; there you have the opportunity
of choosing between your cousin Étienne and myself. I am generous, yes?
They would say, our friends there in our beloved France, how he has
worked for the good of this obstinate little lady! How he has suffered,
that poor François, that he might bring her back to her own, to those
to whom she rightly belongs, the perverse little one! But they will
forgive, yes, they will forgive; the good Father Bisset says so.”

“Father Bisset?” The words came in whispered surprise.

“The same; it is he of whom I spoke a moment ago. He is here. If you
would like to see him, he awaits us. We will have a little supper
together. Permit me to escort you, mademoiselle.” He held the lantern
high and looked questioningly at the girl’s pale face. She refused his
proffered hand, but mechanically walked with him to the larger cabin,
where the kindly face of her old friend met her vision.

With a cry of mingled grief and pleasure she ran forward. Here was one
who had never failed in his gentle consideration, in his mild guidance,
his loving reproof. At once she fell under the spell of his presence.
“Oh, my good father, save me!” she begged.

He looked down at her with a loving smile. “I ought not to have a word
to say to you, little runaway; yet must we forgive when forgiveness is
sought, and you are my spiritual child.”

Alaine made no response, but clung to him. The old man nodded assurance
as she mutely searched his face. “Be not troubled, my child. You are
safe. And when did Father Bisset ever do you a wrong? Come, you are
weary. M. Dupont has provided a good supper for us. Dry your eyes, my
daughter, and join us at table. One may as well partake of good things
when they are set before him.”

Alaine suffered herself to be led to the table, and made a light
supper, while her two companions kept up a race of trivial talk, full
of lively anecdote, by which the girl was entertained in spite of
herself. They sat a long time at table, and when he arose François
said, “Marie shall attend you whenever you wish to go to your room;
meanwhile, I will leave you to the company of Father Bisset, who, I
doubt not, will be more agreeable to you than myself. Pleasant dreams,
Mademoiselle Alaine. Before we part for the night, I drink to our
future.” He took up a cup of wine and tossed it off, then, with a bow
and a good-night, left them.

Father Bisset sat silently, leaning one arm on the table, and looked
long and earnestly at the sad face before him. After a time he came
over and drew a seat close to her side. “My daughter,” he said, “you
can trust Jacques Bisset. He is old, he is weak in body, and he has not
a great mind, but he can endure, he can suffer; he can perhaps use a
little strategy.” He bent nearer and whispered, “Do not seem surprised;
he is also Protestant, this old man. Hush! we must dissemble.” Then
louder: “Yes, my child, it seems good to have you again under my
guidance.” Again his voice dropped. “This François Dupont,”--he glanced
cautiously around,--“he believes me to be still a papist; he had not
heard otherwise, it seems, and, as it happened, he was the first to
meet me as I landed in New York a day or two ago. ‘Ho, Father Bisset,’
he cried, ‘you have come to the wrong port. If, as I suppose, you
are come on a mission to this wild land, you should have been better
informed. They are all loud-mouthed for the Protestant William and
Mary, and you’ll stand a poor showing here. I would advise you to get
out of the colony as soon as possible. I have it,’ he cried, after
a moment’s thought, ‘I will direct you to a safe retreat.’ ‘Thanks,
monsieur,’ I answered, ‘I think I can find my way.’ ‘At all events,’ he
said, ‘I will send some one to guide you to a fair lodging.’ A stranger
and acquainted with little Dutch and no English, I was not averse to
accepting the offer, and I have not a great headpiece, my child, so I
followed my guide, who brought me to a lonely spot by a running river
and bade me step aboard a little boat that I might be ferried across
stream. Ferried I was, but no farther than to mid-stream, when I was
seized bodily and brought aboard this ship.”

He gave a little low chuckle. “I have not protested as yet, for I am
well fed and comfortably lodged, and my religious beliefs have not been
questioned. I do not announce them, but allow them to be taken for
granted. So, my child, let us be watchful and wary and we shall yet
find that this adventure will work to our benefit. I am supposed to
take you under my instruction, and I do not object.” Again the familiar
chuckle rejoiced Alaine’s heart. “We will outwit François Dupont, and
he will be none the wiser of our intent.”

Alaine listened eagerly to all this, and her spirits rose as the genial
old priest went on: “François warned me, just after we set sail, that
I should see you, and I was prepared, therefore I showed no surprise.
He is not a religious enthusiast, and will not notice what my devotions
may be. It will not harm any one if I say my Pater Noster in Latin, and
the good God will hear it just the same. Therefore observe me without
disapproval if you can. The end sometimes justifies the means, and I
pray I may be forgiven if I use covert means for your sake as well as
my own. ‘Wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove,’ that is what one
should be, and to wisdom we must add patience.”

“You will tell me some day of how you made your escape from France,
dear Father Bisset? There is much that I wish to hear.”

“You shall hear it at some convenient time. Meanwhile, we must be
careful of our conversation; there are sharp ears about,” he added,
significantly.

Alaine looked up quickly and saw the dark face of Marie looking at her
from a dim corner. She started, for it brought to mind the fact that
she was again a prisoner, and although seemingly free, the blue waters
encircling her were safer bonds than fetters of steel.

“‘Let not your heart be troubled,’” murmured Father Bisset. “May the
good angel guard you, my child.”

Alaine made the same respectful obeisance she had been wont to use as
a child, and then turned to Marie. “I am ready to retire,” she said.
And the last thing of which she was conscious before she dropped off to
sleep was that Marie’s vigilant eyes seemed to watch her even there in
the darkness.




CHAPTER XI

FROM SHIP TO SHORE


To get rid of Marie and to escape,--the thought recurred to Alaine over
and over again for the next few days. She had nothing to do but to
watch the sea-birds, and, when she was not talking to Father Bisset,
the time hung heavily on her hands. The good old man, be it said, had
given no cause for suspicion of his being a renegade priest, and,
indeed, his lifelong manner of speech and his pious ejaculations were
too much a matter of habit to evidence any change in his opinions.
François, on his part, exercised quite as much acumen in treating
Alaine with deference and in seldom forcing his society upon her.

“She will more readily accept the inevitable if I leave her to your
persuasive arguments,” he said to the ex-priest, confidentially. “Ma
foi! but she has a fine temper. Yet it is not a bad alternative. I am
not so evil nor so cruel as I seem, good father, despite my having
small interest in religious matters. I prefer the Church to no church,
naturally, but I do not trouble myself to go further. I hear Mass;
I make my confession; it is enough. You may not consider that as
sufficient for the husband of Alaine, yet better that than a Huguenot,
you will say. We will return to France after a time, and I keep my
promise; yes, I am not all evil, for I swear I shall try to deliver M.
Hervieu. That may not agree with what you approve; you may believe he
should suffer his punishment, but I am not so tenacious. Do not shake
your head, good father, you too will use your good offices for him;
for if Alaine prefers to remain in a convent for a year, I shall take
you to Guadaloupa and on the return voyage an opportunity is afforded
you to deal artfully yet gently with the erring man, who by this will
probably be glad enough to escape the experiences of an engagé. And so
all goes well.”

“But, my son,” expostulated Father Bisset, “my mission is not to
accompany you upon your travels.”

“But, good Father, consider the reward. You come to America upon
mission work. What is better than such an opportunity? And I promise
you afterwards you shall go your ways and I will do my utmost for you.
I will give you a heavy purse to further your good works. In the long
run you will gain.”

“But, my son, I cannot see why this little Alaine should be so great
a prize that you take all this trouble. Is it not rather Étienne who
should marry her?”

“Étienne!” François clinched his fist. “He shall never have her. At
first--but I will not go into that,--it is sufficient that now I wish
to marry her, and I shall move heaven and earth to accomplish my
object.”

“Softly, softly, my son. Heaven is not to be moved for the
accomplishment of human desires.”

François laughed. “Then I will say that I mean to use every human
endeavor to make it possible to marry Alaine Hervieu, and when a
resolution takes possession of me I am not one to give it up easily.”

The old man softly patted together the outstretched tips of his fingers
and thoughtfully looked out upon the water. “Alaine was never a child
to be coerced,” he said.

“In matters of religion, perhaps not, but in matters of the heart
a woman yields to him who proves himself her master, who does not
cringe nor sue, but who gives her no chance to say no to him. For that
reason, Father Bisset, I leave you to do your part by moral suasion
while I direct the other matter with a high hand. It was through her
affections entirely that she was won over to the Huguenots, and through
her affections it is for you to win her back, first by mild discourse,
and secondly by producing a father who has conformed to your belief. I
think by playing your cards properly--I beg your pardon, by using the
gentle means you know so well how to employ, that you will soon win her
to your way of thinking. That is all I ask of you.”

“And you will not be disappointed,” returned the wily old man. “I feel
sure that we shall both be of one mind, Alaine and I, when we leave
the ship, Monsieur Dupont.”

“So soon?” François struck his hands together in satisfied approval.
“As soon as this? You are doing well, Father.” He laughed. “How sweet
is revenge! There is nothing so sweet.”

“Except forgiveness,” returned the other, gently.

François got up and walked the deck excitedly. “I say revenge. By the
saints, but I shall have won, if not in all directions, at least in
one.” He stepped closer to the old man. “And I reckon on you, Father
Bisset, to make it possible for me to win in both. Alaine vows she will
marry no one whom her father does not favor; the inference is obvious.
Behold your son-in-law, good Monsieur Hervieu, bondman over there
in Guadaloupa. I come to your assistance.” He blew a kiss from his
finger-tips. “You are grateful, monsieur, and with our good priest’s
help I shall endeavor to find a way to persuade you to agree with me,
when I endeavor to show you why I should prove to be an acceptable
husband for your daughter. I have come far to satisfy my desires; I
shall not return ungratified.”

“And your destination on this voyage?” inquired Father Bisset.

“Is Canada. We place Alaine with the good sisters, who will complete
the work you have so well begun.”

Father Bisset’s eyelids drooped over his eyes to hide the sudden
anxiety which leaped up into them. “But suppose, my good sir, that
Alaine should prefer the life of a religious to the name of Madame
Dupont.”

“Ah-h, that she must not do!” François paused in his walk.

Father Bisset watched him. “Would it not be well, then, that they be
warned that she is fiancée, and that all we require is good guidance,
and not that she enter the convent to become one of them? You, of
course, will know what line of argument to use, and how best to incline
them toward this result.”

François looked thoughtfully seaward. “I? No, I do not. As I have told
you, I was never an enthusiast in matters of religion. What shall I
say?”

“More depends upon the manner of saying than upon the words,” replied
Father Bisset, astutely. “One should know well how to choose his words.
It is a pity that you are not a more saintly man,” he added, as it
were, regretfully.

“Then, my dear Father, I must rely upon you, and shall commit the
matter into your hands, first exacting a promise from you that you will
not lose sight of Alaine a moment till she is safely established.”

“I can give you my word that I shall not allow her to leave my presence
for a single instant till she is safely established,” Father Bisset
returned, with emphasis, and the eyes, which a moment before were
downcast to hide their anxiety, were again dropped to hide their
triumph.

“She can be very obstinate, that demoiselle,” said François, after a
pause. “It must be for you to persuade her to go. In this instance a
hint from me would cause rebellion.”

“I think I shall have no difficulty in persuading her. She has obeyed
me from infancy, and the habit of a lifetime, albeit but a short life,
is not easily broken.”

“Good!” cried François. “It was a lucky day when I ran across you there
in New York. The saints be praised that I did. I have not made our
voyage altogether distasteful to you, I hope, although I forced it upon
you. Mademoiselle there grows triste. What is she reading?”

“A little book of devotion which I happened to have with me,” returned
Father Bisset; but he gave a quick look at Alaine, who, in a sunny
corner, had been reading intently.

The old man walked nonchalantly toward her. She looked up with a smile
and put into his hand the book, which he slipped into an inner pocket.
“I trust you have found it profitable reading, my daughter,” he said,
seriously.

“I think so, Father.”

François did not see the sudden amused expression which played around
Father Bisset’s mouth as he saw the satisfied look upon the young man’s
face when he turned away.

Alaine made room by her side for her old friend. “Well?” she said,
eagerly, when François was out of hearing.

“All is well,” she was told. “I think we may hope to escape once we
reach Canada. You, of course, refuse to marry here on shipboard.”

“Of course.”

“Then you go to a nunnery.”

“Oh!”

“I go with you to prepare the nuns for the part they are to act toward
you. That will be our opportunity. Do not look so glad. You must assume
a pensive and troubled air. That is better. As we near land you must
seem distressed, uncertain, shy, even of me, and at times silent and
thoughtful. M. Dupont will urge you at the last to marry him, and you
say you will refuse. Very good.” The old man hesitated a moment, then
said. “But, my daughter, it is a true intention of his to try for the
release of your father. Will you, then, remain in the convent to await
his return?”

“Oh, Father, that is a hard question. How shall I answer it?”

“As your conscience dictates. Can you stand steadfast till our return?
There will be much pressure brought to bear upon you. And will you run
the risk of our finding your father no longer alive and of a forced
return to France for you with François Dupont?”

“But my father, if he should be living? Advise me, I beg of you, for I
cannot see what is right.”

“Could you stand the privations, the experiences you would have to
endure in a flight to the colonies with only this old man as your
protector?”

“I should not be afraid to risk it.”

“Then, my beloved daughter, I advise you to escape while you can. We
cannot tell how the bonds may tighten around you, and it may be too
late a year, or even six months, from now. We would best seize the
opportunity while we may. I know your father would so desire it, and
you tell me there is another working for his deliverance. We will trust
God for that to be accomplished and get away when we can.”

“Ah, Father, how fortunate a day when I chanced upon you!” sighed
Alaine.

He smiled as he remembered that François had said the same words a few
minutes before. “One must sometimes dissemble when it is for good,” the
old man told himself. “I am no longer a Jesuit, but I have not been one
without learning that stratagem is often better than open rebellion.”

Under her friend’s advice and leadership Alaine so comforted herself
that François with satisfaction viewed the quiet, somewhat pensive
mien. “We are taming the wild bird. I shall yet see you come at my
bidding, Alaine, with the fluttering wings, and when we return to
France and I face Étienne Villeneau, what joy!” He laughed to himself
as he leaned over the side of the vessel. But after a moment he raised
his eyes to the blue sky. “Thou up there wilt understand that I do this
for thee, for thee,” he murmured.

In the dim distance a faint line of shore indicated that they were
nearing the great river. Alaine by Father Bisset’s side watched it
grow more and more distinct. For many days she had felt comparatively
safe, but now would soon come a crisis. If at the last moment the plot
failed; if François should insist upon accompanying them himself, or
should send Marie to see that she reached the destination he intended
for her, what then? Marie, herself, silent, vigilant, unapproachable,
might be suspicious and might follow them. Alaine confided her fears to
Father Bisset.

“I have thought of all that,” he replied. “I, myself, am not sure of
the woman, the other I can manage. I am prepared for that. We must
put our trust in the Lord, my daughter, he will deliver us from the
snare of the fowler. ‘Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that
trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.’”

A roundabout way it was, this by water all the way to Quebec by the
outside route, but François had his reasons for selecting it. His
prisoners had no means of escape, and Alaine would be the longer under
the tutelage of Father Bisset. It was some time after they had entered
upon the voyage that the young man approached Alaine. “Mademoiselle,”
he began, “we are going to Quebec. You will not find it a bad place.
Will you enter it as Madame François Dupont?” He stood regarding her
with a grave courtesy.

“Monsieur,” returned Alaine, sweetly, “I am not indifferent to the
compliment you pay me, but I cannot accept your name.”

“You prefer the convent? Then, mademoiselle, if in six months or a year
hence I return with your father as my companion I may claim you from
the good nuns, who will guard you well I feel assured.”

Alaine made no reply, and he went on. “I understand that you are
willing to accept him whom your father shall desire to receive as his
son-in-law. Am I not right?”

Alaine gave a hasty glance at Father Bisset. The question was a hard
one to answer evasively. “Six months, a year is a long time,” she at
length replied, after some hesitation. “How can one promise what one
may do in that time?”

“Then we will leave it so, and I will rest content that you will bide
by your father’s selection and do his bidding.”

“I think I can promise that.”

“That gives me hope sufficient, my fiancée. Soon we must part for a
season. Father Bisset will parley with the good sisters better than I.
He will conduct you to them, and then he will return to me. Is it no
consolation to you, mademoiselle, that this same genial father goes
with me to Guadaloupa to help me in my quest of releasing your father?”

“Whoever has the good fortune to be under the guardianship of Father
Bisset is indeed fortunate,” replied Alaine. “If monsieur is to be
honored by such company, he is indeed blest.”

François bowed, and then, with a laugh, said, “This time I am not able
to say, ‘Whither thou goest,’ is it not so? I do not keep my word in
this instance, but it is because I cannot.”

“No, monsieur, you cannot say that, since it will probably be many days
before we meet, and there will soon be many miles between us.”

“Can you lay any discourtesy to my charge since you have been taken
this enforced journey?”

“No, M. Dupont; I have been treated with every consideration. I
might have preferred a more agreeable maid, but not a more faithful
one could I have selected, and of your own conduct, of that of your
sailing-master and his men, I have no complaint to make.”

“For that much grace my thanks. I trust that mademoiselle when she
is established in the convent will remember me with a little less
aversion, and will reflect that, though I may seem at times to have
been discourteous, my rudenesses have never been directed to her, and,
despite the fact that I have more than once given her no choice in the
matter of travel, I have had her own good in view. Perish her enemies!
I have taken for my watchword. Father Bisset there tells me that
forgiveness is sweeter than revenge.” He looked at her with a little
inquiring smile.

Alaine smiled in return. “When I see you again, monsieur, after this
long parting, I may be better able to extend my forgiveness, at
present----”

“You withhold it. That is not unexpected. Ah-h, France! See, there
flies her flag. Does it not thrill your heart to look upon it, Alaine
Hervieu?”

She looked up and saw flying from the fort the flag of her native
country. For a moment her heart did indeed swell and tears came to her
eyes. “Dear France!” she sighed.

“This will seem quite like home to you,” said Father Bisset,
diplomatically. “We shall all feel as if we were again under the skies
of France. I regret, M. Dupont, that we do not tarry longer. When did I
understand you to say that we set sail for the return trip?”

“As soon as possible,” replied François.

“I should like to see something of the town, now we are here,” the old
man remarked, with a pensive air.

“We can grant you time enough for that,” returned François.

Alaine watched the frowning cliff grow nearer and nearer. The Château
of St. Louis upon the terrace of the Upper Town rose before her; below
twisted the streets of the Lower Town, its gray wharves stretching
along the river. She gazed at the clusters of spires and of buildings.
Under which roof might be those nuns of whom M. Dupont had spoken?
Darkness had settled down when the vessel at last dropped her anchor,
and Alaine went to sleep with a feeling half dread, half joy, for what
the morrow might bring.

She was out upon deck early the next morning. The town stretched
out before her in all its outline of spire and roof, of postern and
bastion; a French city, and she, a French girl, there a prisoner before
it. Father Bisset noted her sigh before he made his presence known.
“Art sorrowful at leaving the ship?” he whispered, smiling.

“No, Father, but one has many thoughts. All this,” she waved her hand,
“does it not bring back thoughts of home to you?”

“Of wrong and persecution, of oppression and death?” he asked.

“Yes, for us it includes that. Oh, Father, shall we surely escape?”

He nodded. “I have the clue I missed. If Marie should follow us I can
manage her. As for the other, he will take a nap this afternoon, I
fancy.”

“Sh! here he comes.”

François approached, debonair and confident. “We will breakfast a
little late. I have sent ashore for some provisions, and we will
have such a feast as we have not had for many a long day. Now that
our voyage is ended, I will admit that it was not without danger.
With England at war with us, and her ships upon the seas, besides
the possibility of heavy storms at this time of year, we might have
fared hardly; yet all has gone well and we will celebrate the event.
Mademoiselle will not refuse a glass of good old wine, and you, Father
Bisset, will not object to drinking her health. I would see you first
in my cabin; I have a few words for your ear.”

Father Bisset followed him, and when they were alone François said,
“Mademoiselle will need a better wardrobe than she is at present
provided with;” he handed him a purse; “this for the purpose.”

Father Bisset recoiled. “My dear sir, I am not versed in the art of
selecting toilettes for a lady; I pray you commission some one else.”

François tossed the purse from one hand to the other. “Then hand it
over to the good sisters and let them attend to it. I may count on your
return, Father Bisset. You will give me your word that when you leave
mademoiselle at the convent you will return to the ship.”

“I do not know why I should,” returned the old man, reflectively. “I do
not know on what grounds you have a right to exact it from me.”

“Only because of mademoiselle; if she is assured that you accompany me
on my search for her father she will feel more content.”

“You are suddenly very considerate.” Father Bisset’s lip curled
slightly.

“It is circumstance that has made me ever seem otherwise, and in this
instance, if I have not your promise, I must feel compelled to detain
you and send mademoiselle under other escort.”

“I promise you that when I leave mademoiselle it will be to return to
you.”

“Good; that is sufficient.”

“But I shall take a little time to examine the city, and if I am not
back at once----”

“I will wait for you; we understood that before.”

It was, indeed, quite an elaborate meal which François provided for
his guests, and Father Bisset warmed to the occasion, so that when
François, with a flourish, proposed the health of the future Madame
Dupont, the old man tossed off his wine gayly. “To the future Madame
Dupont,” he repeated; “a good toast that. You do not drink, Alaine;”
and he laughed.

Alaine looked coldly disapproving; then suddenly it dawned upon her
that it was not she of whom Father Bisset thought, for she remembered
that he intended to make it impossible that she should ever bear that
name. She smiled faintly. He was so sly, so like a crafty old fox, that
Father Bisset.

“Mademoiselle is too modest to drink her own health,” cried François.
“Another bottle, Father. It is good wine, is it not? None too heady,
and smooth and soft as silk.”

“Should you not like to try this other?” asked Father Bisset, drawing
a bottle from under the table, removing the cork, and pouring out a
glassful, which he handed to François. “Also good, is it not?”

“Also good; if anything, better than the other.”

Father Bisset laughed. “I bribed your man to get it for me; I fancied
it was to be had here; it is an old favorite of mine.” He set the
bottle by his side, and from time to time refilled François’s glass.

“A bit heady,” remarked François, after a time. “I think I have had
enough.” He staggered slightly as he rose from his chair.

“We would best depart, Alaine and I; it is later than we realized,”
said Father Bisset, “and a walk will do us good after this heavy meal.
Will you order that we be set ashore?”

François looked at him with dimly seeing eyes. “I will order,” he
mumbled.

Father Bisset led him by the arm on deck; the fresh air revived him
somewhat. “What was it you wanted?” he asked.

“That you order a boat to take us ashore.”

“Yes, yes. See to it, my man,” he said to a passing sailor. “Send the
skipper to me.”

But when the skipper appeared François was beyond the ability of giving
orders. “A boat was to take mademoiselle and myself ashore,” explained
Father Bisset, blandly. “Monsieur has been testing too many of the good
wines; I will assist him to his room.” Still grasping François’s arm,
he led him to his cabin and saw him safely abed. “It was too heady,”
murmured François, drowsily.

Leaving him in a heavy slumber, Father Bisset sought Alaine. “The
moment has arrived,” he told her; “the boat is ready to go.”

Marie stood watching them.

“Adieu, Marie,” said Alaine.

The woman did not move, but simply returned, “Adieu, mademoiselle.”

Up the narrow, crooked streets of the town the fugitives went, their
faces set in the direction of the convent. They walked rapidly, and
Alaine nearly lost breath as she climbed the steep rocky way, her
companion panting beside her. They paused near the market-place. “Now
we are here, the next thing is to get out,” said Father Bisset. “We
will not linger long, my child, for we are safe only for so many hours,
and we must make the most of them.” And he stalked on with increasing
speed, looking anxiously around as he turned from one crooked street
to another. From time to time he looked at Alaine thoughtfully, as
if puzzling over some question. At last he entered a shop, bidding
the girl to follow him, and saying, “I would have you remember, my
daughter, that your brother, though younger, is about your height.”
The solution to these enigmatical words was evident when he purchased
a suit of rough clothes, which he had made up into a bundle and took
under his arm. He paused at the door of the shop as he was going out,
and addressed the shopkeeper. “Could monsieur recommend a cheap and
comfortable lodging where two could rest and await the arrival of the
lad just mentioned?” Monsieur could and did, with voluble directions
pointing the way.

A few minutes of chaffering and the bargain with a sturdy Frenchwoman
was made; but this done, they were established for the nonce in a
by-street out of the way of general traffic.

About dawn there issued from the house two figures; one of a lad in
coarse clothing and the other of the priest who had long ago exchanged
his soutane for a peasant’s dress. Down toward the water front they
took their way among the groups of singing boatmen and coureurs de
bois; farther and farther along till the spars of the vessel in which
François Dupont still lay asleep were lost to sight, and the waters of
the St. Lawrence before them were free of any craft save some light
canoes. Yet farther out, nearer the sea, the ships of a fleet were
sailing toward Quebec, the commander unconscious that one victory to
result from his attack would be that affecting a girl fleeing from a
persistent suitor.




CHAPTER XII

GENERAL JACQUES


Father Bisset stood by the brink of the rushing stream and looked up
and down its banks. “Let us reflect,” he said. “He will sleep late,
till daylight, perhaps, and he will not at once realize that I do not
intend to return. As for Marie, I think she will say nothing, for it
would do no good, and but bring blame upon her. I think he will begin
to suspect when he receives the packet I left for him, a purse which he
handed to me for your use.”

“He dared to do that!”

“Yes; but it was kindly meant, and I was obliged to receive it, but
not to retain it. Very well, then, he discovers the purse, and after a
time he comes to himself, and will immediately set out to make inquiry
at the convent. We have not been there, then we have outwitted him and
have escaped, though perhaps he will not think I have taken you out of
the town, and he will search there first. All this will take time, and
we have a good start. I think we are safe.”

Alaine’s hand on his arm tightened. “And you think there is no danger
from him? He will not follow?”

“He may eventually, but we have some hours’ start. He must first
satisfy himself that I do not intend to return, and that you are at
none of the convents or anywhere in Quebec. The sleeping potion which I
put in the wine will not lose its effect at once, and he will be stupid
all day.”

“I cannot imagine how you were able to do this,” Alaine said,
thoughtfully. “Where did you get the potion?”

“I took care to provide myself with several necessities when I left
France, and in case of emergency I brought with me one or two weapons
quite as useful as a sword or a pistol. I know how to use certain
drugs, but I know little about wielding implements of war. My little
possessions, you may remember, were brought aboard the vessel with me;
some of them remain there, the rest I have here.”

The soft purple light of an early October morning hovered over the
lofty bluffs of Point Levi, and a delicate mist floated above plain
and river. The boatmen were beginning to gather, and their songs were
wafted upon the morning air. Silent and sleeping the town still lay,
its people unaware of the approach of a little fleet, and not dreaming
that the guns of the fort would soon bellow forth a savage greeting to
Sir William Phipps.

To the fact of their being neither Dutch nor English was now due the
safety of Alaine and her companion. A renegade priest might receive
some sufferance from the friends of Frontenac, himself none too fond of
the Jesuits, but with war upon them, the French would have shown small
mercy to one from the British colony of New York. Therefore Father
Bisset impressed it upon Alaine, “We are French; we are from Rouen; we
have come to make our fortunes. Henceforth I am your uncle Jacques, and
thus you must address me. A boy and his uncle will not be so easily
traced as a girl and the man she calls father. We will trudge along, my
nephew, and get a little beyond the town; we shall not be very long in
meeting some of those wild woodmen of whom we both have heard much; we
shall in all probability have to spend some time with them, therefore
prepare yourself for a rough life. For you, my child, it will be a hard
experience; for me, well, he must expect it who flees his country.
Fugitives from justice are many of these coureurs de bois, and a fellow
feeling will do much toward establishing a good understanding.”

Through the woods, brilliant with the autumn coloring in the keen
Canadian air, they wandered, pursuing the track of the river, and
at last they came upon a group of rough voyageurs intent upon their
noonday meal. “Does there happen to be one Antoine Crepin among you?”
asked Jacques Bisset as he approached. “I am in search of him; a
fugitive from France am I, and I seek this Antoine, whom I well knew in
my youth.”

The men eyed him and looked askance at the delicate features of this
questioner’s companion. “Antoine Crepin?” at last one spoke up. “I know
him; he has gone farther along; he winters near Trois Rivières always.”

“And do you go that way?”

“We go, yes, there or somewhere.”

“Have you room for two more in your party? I have--what have I? Not
much; a little of the silver of France for our passage.” He carefully
drew some coins from his pouch.

The men conferred together. “We will take you. Keep your money. It
is share and share alike. You and the boy there will need something
to begin life with, my friend. You have chosen a bad time for your
travels, with the country alive with disputes. Up and down the river
it is the same; they say the English may approach. For ourselves we
get out, but we may fall into the hands of the Iroquois before night.
However, that is the life; one cannot tell when one is in danger; one
may be drowned or be torn by a wild beast, or be scalped by an Indian;
one thing is as likely as another; it is all chance; if you wish to
take yours with us, very well.”

That wild journey, would Alaine ever forget it? the frail canoes
shooting through the whirling rapids and borne on and on; the night
beneath the bright stars, with the cries of prowling beasts in her
ears, and the haunting dread of an Indian war-whoop disturbing her
dreams; those days when weird songs and rude jests awoke the echoes in
silent places. She had not labored in field and garden to be other than
free of movement, and her skill in cooking won her the approval of her
rough companions. It was even harder for Jacques Bisset to hide the
fact of his former calling than it was for Alaine to disguise her sex,
and many a laugh arose at the old man’s expense. “He is schoolmaster;
he is scrivener; he is--what is he?” they cried. “And he guards the
lad as if he were taking him to a monastery. Here, Alain, boy, leave
that mother-man of yours and we’ll give you a chance to kill a deer, a
chance you’ll not have had back there in France.”

And Alaine would laugh and say, “I’d rather cook your deer than kill
him, and this uncle, he will learn one day, though he is not young.
Leave us here to keep up the fire and cook your food; we will sit and
fish, and if you come home empty-handed we maybe will have something
for you.” So they would troop off and leave them to watch the camp till
they returned with their game and were ready to launch again upon the
river, each day bearing them farther from Quebec, where the guns of the
fort were growling out their defiance of the doughty Phipps and where
François Dupont had awakened from his long sleep to one predominant
fact: the city was threatened; it was French, above all it was French,
and to arms he flew, remembering for a time only dimly that there were
such persons as Father Bisset or Alaine Hervieu, or, if he remembered,
it was to feel a grim satisfaction that they were there on his side.
It was only after Frontenac’s valiant defence, and when the bumptious
Phipps sailed away the worse off by eight vessels and many men, that
François began to think of his own affairs. “I promised the old priest
that I would wait for him. Very well, I have waited. I shall find him,
no doubt, somewhere with the monks at the college or the seminary. He
may be assisting them at Notre Dame des Victoires to decorate with
trophies after this our victory. Vive La France!” he shouted aloud at
the remembrance. “I, too, share in that victory. Good! I first find
Father Bisset, and then my vessel, if she is not blown up. We shall set
sail rather later than we intended, but it is better than a few days
too soon, for we might by this time be prisoners of that Phipps.”

To the convent he went. No priest and no Mademoiselle Hervieu had
ever been there. François looked mystified. “It was uncommonly heady,
that wine,” he remarked to himself. “I scarcely remember ever to have
been so muddled by a little bout; yet--ah, yes, he has taken alarm.
He learned that the English were coming and he removed himself and
mademoiselle to a safer place. He will return. I sit here and wait; it
is all that I can do. He learns of victory and he returns. I said I
would wait, and I wait.”

More than once Alaine had seen Father Bisset take from his pocket a
paper which he studied carefully and then seemed lost in thought, a
proceeding which brought forth jests from the rollicking voyageurs.
“An order for good living, is it, Jacques Bisset?” one would cry. “A
letter from the king himself, very likely,” put in a big fellow with an
immense voice to match his proportions. “We have here, my friends, one
carrying orders for Louis XIV.; he will lead us against the English.”
He bowed low, sweeping the ground with his fur cap. “I have discovered
you, Monsieur le General Jacques Bisset.” Every one joined in the laugh
that followed, and from that time he was dubbed General Jacques.

They had halted for their evening meal. Trois Rivières was not a day’s
journey from them. Squatting around their fire they were preparing
their meat for spitting before the cheerful blaze; the nights were
waxing cold, and they huddled blinking in close range of the acceptable
heat. Suddenly Petit Marc--so-called in sheer contrariness--slapped his
knee. “Son of a donkey! Senseless hooting owl!” he cried. “I forget
that it is near here that Antoine Crepin has his lodge. It is near an
Indian village beyond the woods there. Come, General Jacques, we can
make it before it grows too late. If it is Antoine you want, Antoine
you shall have, though how one can prefer the surly fellow to any of us
passes my comprehension. Here, boy, up with you, for from the alacrity
with which the general stirs his bones it is good-by to us and how are
you, Antoine? We shall find him, I think; these last nights have been
cold enough to drive him in. Who’ll go with us? You, Gros Edouard? You,
Richard?”

Two or three scrambled to their feet, and they set out without further
ado through the dim forest, their torches aflare and their guns ready.
“It is a little more than a mile westward,” Petit Marc told them.
“We can trot it in no time and back again. Antoine would rather have
Indians for neighbors than whites, and he is half right,” he added, in
an aside. “We’ll jog right on.” They proceeded Indian-file through the
leaf-carpeted wood, Petit Marc marching ahead, and Richard with Gros
Edouard bringing up the rear. At last they came to a creek swollen
with the autumn rains; it was a turbulent little stream, but it did
not daunt the voyageurs. “We shall have to swim it,” said Petit Marc,
calmly looking up and down the rising stream. “You, General Jacques,
can you use your fins? I’ll take the boy on my back, for I’ll swear he
can’t swim.” He looked Alaine up and down. “How is it, son?”

Alaine shook her head.

“I thought so. Here, then, take me around the neck, so, first, then
slip your hands to my shoulders, and hold hard. You needn’t be scared;
I have carried heavier bodies than yours across worse floods. Here we
go.” And he landed Alaine on the muddy bank at the other side. Shaking
himself like a huge dog, he stood up to watch the progress of the
remaining members of the party. “Keep it up, general,” he shouted,
“you’ll soon make it. Help him, boys; he hasn’t the muscle of the rest
of us.” And, indeed, the old man’s strength was nearly spent, and
after being dragged up the bank he dropped trembling to the ground.
Petit Marc pulled out a flask. “Tickle your throat with that and you’ll
be able to come on, general,” he said.

A few minutes of rest sufficed to give breath to the old man, and they
continued their way to the cabin, which stood but a short distance
farther on. With a ponderous rap Petit Marc beat on the door. “Awake,
there, Antoine,” he called. “Here is General Jacques and a section of
his army. Awake and open in the name of the king.”

In an instant the door was opened and a face peered out, showing in the
flame of the torches suspicious eyes and a grim, unsmiling mouth. “The
general here insisted upon making your house his head-quarters,” said
Petit Marc, grinning; “he has written orders from the king to press us
all into service, and you are to provision the whole army. We will have
pity on you to-night, having supped fairly well, and we’ll go back, but
you’ll have to keep him and the boy.” He gave the dripping figure of
Father Bisset none too gentle a push toward the door.

“Antoine Crepin?” said the shivering old man.

“That is my name.”

“And Jeanne?”

Antoine looked closer, gave an exclamation of surprise, and opened
wide the door. Father Bisset entered followed by Alaine. “It’s all
right, boys,” said Petit Marc; “the general is safe, and we return.
Good-night, general; we shall expect to receive our promotions in short
order.” And with a loud laugh Petit Marc and his companions turned back.

“He is very wet; he will take cold, I am afraid,” said Alaine to the
man, who was looking at her curiously. “As for me,” she continued, “on
that broad back I scarcely touched the water enough to hurt me.”

“But Jeanne?” Father Bisset interrupted.

Antoine placed his hand on the questioner’s shoulder and conducted him
across the floor to where an inner room was roughly separated from the
larger apartment. Alaine did not follow, but drew nearer the fire and
crouched on the hearth to wring the water from her damp moccasins and
to dry her sleeves. By the dim, flickering light she saw that here was
a dwelling of the rudest kind; a roughly fashioned bench, a table, a
pile of skins in one corner, a few cooking-utensils, were all that
she could discern. From the inner room had come a quick exclamation,
a surprised scream of delight, laughter and sobs mingled, and then
voluble words expressive of astonishment, commiseration, and inquiry.
Presently reappeared Antoine bearing a light, and behind him came two
figures. At first sight these were so exactly alike that Alaine stared.
Were there two Father Bissets, one many years younger than the other?
She rubbed her eyes and looked again. A red kerchief was tied around
each of these two heads; each wore a fringed deer-skin jacket, below
which was wrapped an Indian blanket. The two faces showed alike kindly
eyes, expansive lips, and the same genial smile. Then the older spoke.
“This is Jeanne Crepin, my sister Jeanne, who remembers well little
Alaine Hervieu in her babyhood.”

Alaine at once comprehended; this was the sister of her old friend,
the young sister of whom Michelle had often told her, who had married
a gay young Parisian and had followed him overseas. There was some
difficulty, some crime which affected these two, Alaine remembered, and
they had not remained to take any risks. It was said that Father Bisset
had covered the retreat, but of this no one could be positive, but it
seemed that all these years he had kept track of the fugitives. It was
all true, then, and here they were.

“Alaine Hervieu resembles her mother,” came Jeanne Crepin’s deep voice.
“She is very welcome.”

“And now you know,” said Father Bisset, “why I was not so concerned
when I learned that our destination would be Canada, for Canada I
intended to reach, whether by Hudson, by sea, or by land, it mattered
not, and I laughed in my sleeve that François Dupont should be helping
me on my way.”

Alaine smiled. She feared François no longer. “And all these years you
have been living in these woods?” she asked of Jeanne.

“In these woods; they are kinder than cities. One can learn how to
face open foes; it is those who approach us as friends that are most to
be feared.”

Antoine nodded gravely. Alaine looked at him with some curiosity.
Michelle had described him as a handsome young cavalier, gay and
full of life; this serious, reticent old man did not answer to her
description. Was he really guilty of that mysterious crime, and
so bowed under the weight of it, or was it the injustice of being
considered guilty while he was innocent that had embittered him? Alaine
wondered over it. But she was tired, and the warmth of the room and
the effect of a warm herby drink given her soon made her drowsy, so
that her head began to droop, and she threw herself down on the pile
of skins in the corner, dimly conscious that a low-voiced conversation
went on for hours. Although she felt more secure than she had for
weeks, she felt singularly lonely, and she slipped into a sleep to
dream that she struggled alone through a sea whose waves ever beat her
from the shore.

Having cast in his lot with these children of the wood, Jacques Bisset
followed as closely as possible their manner of living, sallying forth
into the crisp cold air with gun on shoulder, joining in with the
mirth of Jeanne, holding friendly one-sided conversations with such
Indians as they met, and teaching Alaine such woodcraft as he thought
might be useful to her. Antoine, himself grave and silent, had a smile
for no one but the cheerful Jeanne, yet he showed his brother-in-law
more graciousness of manner than he did any other. During the long
evenings there was time enough for talk, at least it was Father Bisset
who chiefly did the talking; Jeanne would put in her eager, saucy
questions, and Alaine, well wrapped in furs, would crouch in a warm
corner and listen, yet often letting her thoughts wander. Where were
they, her father and Pierre, and--Lendert? Yes, Lendert. Even here,
and in spite of all these changing scenes, she could not forget him.
The devotion of Jeanne and her husband touched her deeply, and Antoine
reminded her of Pierre. Poor Pierre, if he had returned he would wait
and watch for her the rest of his days. But Lendert, had he forgotten?
Yet it was of Lendert she thought the most frequently; it was Lendert
she loved. There had been moments of peril, moments of solemn night
when truth must be answered by truth; she had tried to retreat, but
truth had held her and would be answered, and she, trembling, had
confessed to Danger and to Night, “There is one I love. I cannot help
it; I have tried with all my strength, but Love is mightier than I,
and I am slave to love.” Then, as some red embers dropped with a soft
brustle from the burning logs, she would start from her revery and come
back to hear what Father Bisset was saying. Now he spoke of Holland,
then of England. He had been in both places. Were they surprised,
Jeanne and Antoine, that he was Huguenot? They had suffered; they would
understand that a matter of conscience,--well, that was it.

“A matter of conscience, yes, when one has fled because of that there
is nothing to say,” Jeanne would say. “We owe it to you, Jacques, my
brother, that we have escaped to a place where the arm of law does not
touch us. We do not criticise you, he and I; we have suffered too much
from France ever to wish to see that country again. We live a wild
life; there is not much religion in it, yet if one can believe in God
and in his justice, not man’s, he is not altogether bad. I tell my
beads; I say my prayers; I have respected the priests because you were
one. Now, I hate the France that has persecuted you and the Jesuits who
would curse you.”

Alaine heard this, then slept, awaking to hear, “The child Alaine must
be returned to her friends. I ask that of you, Antoine and Jeanne. I
am an old man, and of late I realize that I am not as strong as I used
to be. If I am removed I leave her to your sacred charge. She must be
taken to one of the English or Dutch settlements in New York. I was
God’s instrument to save her from the pit digged for her, and I have
guarded her from all the evil that I could. I may have been mistaken to
bring her in this disguise, but it seemed better so, and it was not for
long.”

“She is not much hurt,” laughed Jeanne. “Ma foi! if I could stand it
for all these years she could stand it for two or three days. They
are not so desperately wicked, those that brought you here. One may
have been something worse than any of them and still have remained
respected in France.”

“True, Jeanne, true,” growled Antoine.

“At all events,” continued Jeanne, “you need give yourself no
uneasiness; we will start forth as soon as the weather permits and see
her safe in one of the settlements, and then we return here to live and
die together. As for the girl’s dress, it is a good one, and warm at
that. I wear much the same, and if I had to travel about more than I
do, I should not cumber myself with anything more. It is quiet enough
and cold enough here to wear anything one chooses.”

Alaine lifted her head and stretched out her feet towards the blaze.
“I am very comfortable,” she said, “and I do not think I am likely to
remember or repeat all that patois of the crew which brought us here,
so give yourself no uneasiness, Uncle Jacques; I am grateful to the
very tip of my moccasins for all that you have done for me. I want to
go home, yes, but I want to take you all with me.” The wave of her hand
included even the gloomy Antoine.

Jeanne laughed. “She would take us all, you hear. Very well, let us go
and see what Michelle will do.”

“She will be very glad, I can assure you,” Alaine returned, gravely.

“I am not so sure of that,” Jeanne responded. “However, there is bitter
weather before us, and who shall say what may happen before spring?”

Who, indeed, can say what may happen anywhere while human passions are
allowed to slip from their leash? The wildest of solitary places is yet
too narrow to prevent the lifting of Cain’s hand against his brother.
And because of this, one day along the snow-covered ground toward the
lodge there came a file of men led by Petit Marc, who carried in his
arms a burden. At every step there were red stains to be seen marking
the snowy path. Behind Marc came Antoine, his arms held about the necks
of two others; he stepped feebly, as one not sure of his way. At the
door of the lodge the little company paused, and Jeanne, hearing the
shuffling feet, opened to them.

“Mother of God!” she cried, “what is this?”

Petit Marc, without a word, entered and deposited his burden in the
clumsy chair which, covered with furs, stood before the fire.

“Jacques!” cried Jeanne. “Antoine!” For a moment she was helpless,
looking from one to the other.

“I am beyond remedy,” whispered her brother; “go to Antoine.”

His friends had placed Antoine on the pile of skins in the corner; and
he lay there pressing his hand to his side.

“You are hurt, my Antoine,” said Jeanne, the moan of a woman entering
into the deep tones of her voice. She knelt beside him, touching him
with tender fingers.

Alaine, like one dazed, looked on. “How did it happen? What is it?” she
asked, turning to Petit Marc.

Antoine half raised himself. “I will tell. He called me a murderer,
he, that wretched outlaw. He recognized me, called me by name, taunted
me. I drew my pistol, but it was he who fired. Jacques rushed between.
‘Jeanne cannot spare you,’ he cried. He fell, and could I endure it? I
rushed upon him with my knife, but he was ready, I was wounded and he
has escaped.”

“Now God’s vengeance follow him!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Who was it? Who,
who, Antoine?”

“Victor Le Roux,” he whispered; “it was he. I recognized him, as he
did me, after all these years. ‘Hold there, Olivier Herault,’ he said;
‘murderer art thou, and liar as well, if thou sayest I cheat.’”

Petit Marc lifted his head. He was chafing the hands of the old man
over whom he was bending. “Olivier Herault!” he exclaimed. “And what of
him?”

“I am he,” said Antoine, faintly. He gently pushed away the hand with
which Jeanne would have arrested the words.

Father Bisset opened his eyes and smiled. “Olivier Antoine Crepin
Herault, Jeanne’s husband,” he said.

Petit Marc stood up, his giant form towering above them all. “Olivier
Herault? then an innocent man,” he said, slowly.

“And why? Why?” Jeanne turned her rugged face toward him, and Antoine
essayed to stagger to his feet.

Petit Marc looked toward the other men grouped together by the door.
“Here, my friends, this one, Antoine here, I know him to be innocent of
any crime. Among us here in the woods it matters little what a man has
been, but there are some of us who carry about with us the poison of an
unjust charge. Most of us make the best of it; we care but little; we
would rather be more free here than less free there, and we would not
go back to the old life, but we do not tell of what is behind us; the
present is enough for us to live for. Yet when one may clear a man, one
may as well do it. More than ten years ago one of my comrades, hurt by
a falling tree, died in my arms. He wished to confess his sins before
he departed, and he told me that he had fled from France because of
having murdered a man in a quarrel. ‘For this crime,’ he said, ‘one
Olivier Herault is accused. I have heard that he escaped on the eve of
his arrest, and that there was a hue-and-cry raised because of it. If
you ever find him give him my confession; write it out as I tell you.’
And I did; here it is.” He drew forth a torn, stained bit of paper. “I
sent word to France, but I have never heard whether the message reached
there. I thought some day to find out, for I, too, Marc Lenoir, know
what it is to be falsely accused. The law is not always so sure nor so
just. Your innocence is proved, Olivier Herault; no one believes in
mine.” He spoke simply, as one who long ago had accepted a fact and
made the best of it.

“Antoine! Antoine! do your hear?” cried Jeanne. “Jacques, my brother
Jacques, you, who believed in him, who let him escape and said nothing,
do you not hear? You have saved him for this great moment, my Jacques.”

There was a far-away look in the old man’s eyes; he seemed not to know
what was going on; he gasped painfully. “Little Alaine,” he murmured,
“come here, little Alaine, and say your prayers before I go. The
angelus is ringing and it will soon be your bedtime.”

Alaine with clasped hands and streaming eyes crept to his knees and
bowed there as a child before its mother. He held her warm hands in his
nerveless ones, now growing so sadly cold. “Pater Noster,” he began
faintly, and Alaine sobbingly repeated, “Pater Noster.”

“Qui es in cœlis.”

“Qui es in cœlis.”

“Sanctificetur nomen tuum;” the voice was growing very faint.

“Sanctificetur nomen tuum;” the girl gathered strength and repeated the
words distinctly, following the whispered sentences till one could no
longer hear them, and she finished the prayer alone.

Every one was kneeling. The cold light of a winter’s sun touched the
white hair of the old man with faint gold like a halo of glory. Alaine
with bowed head now sobbed unrestrainedly, not yet aware that upon the
lips of Father Bisset the Angel of Death had set his seal.




CHAPTER XIII

A DAUGHTER OF THE WOODS


For some moments no one spoke, then there was a stir among the men,
who, one by one, filed out, until of them only Petit Marc was left.
He, with the half-dozen others, had made their winter quarters near
by, too indifferent to the affairs of war to care to mix with the
more zealous community, yet ready to take up a cause at any time when
there seemed sufficient promise for adventure. A short time before
they had been joined by the man Victor Le Roux, who had the name of
being a hot-headed, quarrelsome fellow, and a reckless one. Over some
matter concerning the division of the spoils of a day’s hunt had begun
the quarrel with Antoine. Victor had recognized in Antoine an early
acquaintance with whom he had never been upon very good terms, even in
the old days of their youth, and he lost no opportunity of showing his
feeling. So little value was set upon life in these wilds of America
that a touch, a word, and the swords would fly out, the pistols would
be drawn, and the man least on his guard would come off worst.

Petit Marc reflected upon this as he stood regarding Antoine, who, with
burning gaze, did not remove his eyes from the peaceful face of Father
Bisset. “He shall die,” at last said Marc.

Antoine looked up. “He shall die,” he repeated.

Marc held his pistol in his hand; he turned it over and looked at it
critically. “I promise you that,” he said. “As for you, Antoine.”

“I must live to return to France to face them there.”

Marc looked at him reflectively. “Is it worth while?” he asked. “Life
is short at best. We are forgotten there; we may as well not stir up
dead embers from which no fire can again be kindled. Who lives now that
would care? I advise you to remain and live out the life you have begun
here; it is a good life.”

“If I live, I will go back, but first I wish to know that Victor Le
Roux no longer lives. I wish first to kill him.”

“And return with the stain upon your hands of which they were clean
when you left?” Marc continued.

Antoine fell back upon his uncouth bed. “One does not expect moralizing
from you, Marc Lenoir,” he said.

Marc smiled. “No, I profess nothing. I am become a coureur de bois; I
do not belie my character. I do not pretend to be anything else than a
lawless runner of the woods, a man who cares for neither God, man, nor
the devil. I have no wish to vaunt a claim to respectability, even,
grant you, a right to do so is accorded me. I escaped the country
after a charge of robbery, a political robbery at that.” He laughed.
“As if that were an uncommon thing. Ma foi! if every political robber
were transported to the colonies, what an immense increase there
would be in the population! I never wronged a man in my life, unless
the sending of a half-dozen Iroquois to the Happy Hunting-Grounds be
considered a wrong to them. I do not go now to France for justice; I
work it out for myself here, and I say that Victor Le Roux must die. I
constitute myself judge, and I shall not find it hard to discover the
executioner.” He turned and left the room, closing the door very gently.

It was days before he returned, and then it was to find that for Father
Bisset had been made a grave in a sheltered spot in the forest, and
that by his side lay Antoine Crepin, who never again saw France, but
who hugged to himself the promise of his return even up to the last
moment. “We will go in the spring, Jeanne,” he said over and over. “In
the spring, when I am well and strong, and the leaves are coming out.
We will take the child to Manhatte, and will sail from there.” But it
was to an eternal spring that he went home.

In these years Jeanne Crepin, always cheerful, humorous, vivacious,
had enlarged these qualities by adding a devil-may-care manner.
Spontaneously free and easy by nature, she had found no curb necessary
in this life of unrestrained wildness, and it suited her. Her
husband’s bitterness of spirit caused him to grow taciturn and grim,
making him look a much older man than he was, and, to offset this,
Jeanne, at first in desperation, and later in natural response to her
limitless environment, was always ready with jest, with smile, with
song. The coquetries of her girlhood were exchanged for a certain
audacity which stood her in good stead with the rough voyageurs, who
were about her only friends, unless one excepted the Indian squaws and
their braves. Deeply as she loved her brother and her husband, and
faithfully as she mourned them, hers was not a nature to brood, and she
simply checked off her grief as one more wrong to lay to the charge
of France, and accounted it no treachery to say that she abjured her
country.

“For me what has France done? Sent us here, Antoine and I. Not so
bad, you say? No, but one suffers before one gets used to it, and now
Jacques lies there in the forest. God knows I am thankful he had not
more to endure, yet, for all that, I lay his death to the charge of
those who haled him out of his quiet corner. And Antoine, was he not
hounded and pursued by vindictive wretches who took on hearsay his
guilt when he was innocent? Do I forgive France the bitterness of his
life, the putting out of the light of his youth? No, long ago Antoine
and I decided that we owed France nothing.”

She was talking to Petit Marc, who had stopped to tell her the news
from the settlements and to ask how the boy fared. He had just
returned from a long journey. What he had accomplished he did not
tell, save that Victor Le Roux had come to his end at the hands of two
Indians. “He deserved what he got,” Marc said, laconically, and Jeanne
did not question further.

“The boy?” Jeanne in her half-mannish attire stood in the doorway of
her lodge; she looked quizzically at Petit Marc. “The boy is well
enough.” She laughed softly. “I shall keep him here till the snows are
gone.”

“And then?” Petit Marc asked.

“Time enough to tell when the time comes.” Jeanne snapped her fingers
as if to dismiss the subject.

Petit Marc stood shifting his cap from hand to hand. “Can’t I see him?
You keep him as close as if he were a week’s old baby.”

Jeanne laughed again. “If you can keep a secret, Marc Lenoir, you may
see my baby.”

“If it is a secret that has the boy in it, you may trust me.”

Jeanne gave an assenting nod which invited Marc to follow her indoors,
and he saw, sitting demurely by the open fire, Alaine deftly sewing
together bits of doeskin. She wore a little cap set upon her brown
curls, and despite her furry jacket and leather leggings, there was
such an unmistakable air of femininity in her attitude and employment
that Marc at first stared, and then exclaimed, “A girl!”

“Surely. A young lady of good birth, Mademoiselle Hervieu, of Rouen,
now in flight from a would-be lover, who more than once has carried
her off, and from whom she has as often miraculously escaped. On this
account she has disguised herself, for she wishes to elude discovery
till she is safe at home again.”

Petit Marc stood abashed before the young lady, but Alaine smiled and
dimpled. “You need not be afraid of me, Petit Marc,” she said. “I am as
good a friend as when you taught me how to trap a beaver. Sit down and
tell me about them all, Gros Edouard, Ricard of the big nose, and all
the rest. I shall never forget how good you all were to me on that wild
journey from Quebec.”

Petit Marc dropped his big hulk on a bench and sat looking at the
fire; then he turned to Alaine with a dawning smile. “No wonder that
General Jacques stood guard over you, and looked as if he would skin
and devour us one after another if we so much as said ‘the devil!’ in
your presence. He had a way, that General Jacques, and we all wondered
afterwards why on that trip we kept our mouths so uncommonly sweet.
Yet, mademoiselle, I think you must have heard some things you never
heard before.”

Jeanne spoke up sharply. “You need not remind her of that, Petit Marc.
It is I who now stand guard.”

“You!” Petit Marc burst into a rousing laugh. “My faith, Jeanne, you
will have to walk backward for more than one year before you come to
where you left off being a lady.”

Jeanne glowered at him. “I have not forgotten how,” she returned; “but
you, Petit Marc, could never have been a gentleman even at your best,
and when you were there in Paris, of which you pretend to know so
much. Circumstances did not need to change you so noticeably. For me,
I repeat, I do not forget, and one need not wear court manners to be
called a good woman.”

Petit Marc became suddenly sober, although he said, lightly enough,
“Ta, ta, Jeanne, it was but a rough joke, the like you have heard
dozens of times. You are become suddenly touchy, and no wonder. You
shall not complain of me again, and if you need me, I, too, will
remember that it does not take court manners to make one a good man. I
will remember that--if I can.” He laughed again. Nothing long disturbed
his gay humor. He would be ready for a jocular remark a moment after he
had killed his worst enemy or buried his best friend. He stretched his
huge length along the bench and looked good-naturedly at Jeanne, who
responded with a half-smile. “I pray you keep to that,” she said. “If I
want you, I shall expect you to come.”

“I will come.” He rose to his feet. “But at present I go. I will look
in to-morrow, Jeanne. Adieu, mademoiselle.” He bowed with a grace not
learned from savages and went out.

“Ta, ta, ta,” said Jeanne. “He is not so bad, after all, and we shall
need him some day. I shall not soon forget what he has done for us
all, poor Petit Marc.” She sighed, but recovered herself at once. She
was stoically gay with Alaine, who, nervous and overwrought, was none
too amiable these days. It seemed that the association with Jeanne had
given back some of the petulance of her childhood.

“You are so big, so like a man, Jeanne,” she would say. “How can you
pretend to know what a girl feels? You keep me shut up here like a
rabbit in a hutch, and I want to go; I must go. I am weary of this
life. How long do we stay?”

“Till I learn to remember the graces of my youth,” Jeanne would reply,
laughing. “You will be ashamed of me there among your friends. How does
one carry a train, for example?” And she would give her blanket a sweep
across the floor with the air of a court lady.

“So foolish you are, Jeanne. We do not wear court clothes at New
Rochelle, and besides, you know they do not countenance the papists
there. So, what are you going to do about that?”

“Am I, then, a papist?” Jeanne looked meditative. “I think I buried all
that with Jacques. I am whatever is convenient, Alaine. I am like those
fish which are one thing up here among the French and another down
there with the Dutch. Call me whichever you will, I am to the taste of
whoever likes me. I am a man, am I? Then come sit on my knee and be my
sweetheart.” And she would seize Alaine bodily, giving her a sounding
smack, and jolt her up and down till she begged for mercy.

It was worth while to see this daughter of the woods go stalking off,
gun in hand, in the direction of the Indian village, where she was well
known and liked for her fearlessness, her kindliness, and her skill.
The Man-Wife they called her, or Jeanne the white brave. Whistling she
would go, her great snow-shoes planted dexterously at every step, and
returning, would bring such game as she had shot or trapped or could
barter for. More than once Alaine had begged the life of a wounded
squirrel or a timid rabbit, till the lodge by degrees became the home
of several of these pets, these serving as company for Alaine, who, in
Jeanne’s absence, bolted and barred in, passed long solitary hours.

For all Jeanne’s brave front, Alaine would sometimes find her sitting
on the floor of the inner room, in her eyes the agony of love and
longing as she held hugged to her the old leathern jacket Antoine had
worn, or pressed to her cheek the dingy fur cap which had dropped from
his head that day when they brought him home. Therefore Jeanne did
not forget, but made her moan silently. Under the indifferent manner
toward matters religious Alaine discovered, too, a conscience as that
of a Puritan, an unswerving fidelity to truth, to purity, and righteous
dealing. Jacques Bisset spoke the truth when he called his sister
a good woman. The men might laugh and joke with her, but only to a
certain point, beyond that she was as prim as a Quaker, and they knew
the limit. With the Indians she was uniformly frank and considerate,
never failing to be generous in her trades with them. Therefore the
forest could not hold a better guardian for a wandering maid than
Jeanne Crepin.

In her fur cap and jacket, her leathern breeches and short skirt, with
her gruff voice and her great height, one could scarce discern that she
was not a man, a fact which she rather enjoyed. “Who cares what I am?”
she would say. “So long as I know how to make my way and am comfortable
so, I do not care.” She had made Alaine a similar costume. “We will
travel in this dress,” she told her, “and while they are puzzling over
whether we are men or women, it will give us the advantage. We will
start before the Iroquois begin their raids. I know the language of
some of their tribes, and I think I can manage to get on, yet it is
not altogether a pleasure jaunt we will take. At first I thought we
would best go alone, but I think we will let Petit Marc go with us, at
least part of the way, till we cross into the Dutch country. You know a
little of their language?”

“A little, and some English.”

“We shall do, I think. Down the river to the Richelieu, through the
lake to the carrying-place, and then down the Hudson. I have studied it
all out. Petit Marc has been there to Orange, and he knows. Now, teach
me the English words you know, and see if I can remember some of the
manners I had when I was a girl. Does one courtesy so? And what does a
woman say when a man praises her beauty?”

Alaine laughed at the simper upon Jeanne’s face and the awkward dip of
her gaunt figure.

“I shall want to overpower Michelle with my elegance,” Jeanne rattled
on. “Michelle the housekeeper, the nurse of the Hervieus, and I the
wife of as gay a cavalier as one could find in all Paris, and now----”
She stretched out her hands, knotted and browned. “Where is the Jeanne
Bisset who could grace a silken robe, and whose hands were as soft as
the laces which covered them? She is gone, and Michelle rises, the wife
of a man of education and good blood. I am a daughter of the woods, the
wife of an outcast. So it goes. Yet I would not have it otherwise; it
was for you, Antoine,” she murmured. Then with a twirl of her body she
cut such a caper as set Alaine laughing. “How does one dance a figure?”
she asked.

“We shall probably find you do not forget the dancing,” the girl
returned. “I think we can spare you that lesson, Jeanne.”

“Then be you Michelle and I the grande dame of her remembrance.”
Jeanne’s quick fingers fashioned a turban from her kerchief. She spread
a fur robe across her knees, picked up the turkey-tail they used for
sweeping up the hearth, and assumed a languishing air.

“Madame Herault.” Alaine swept her a courtesy.

“Ah, my good Michelle, I remember you quite well. You used to give me
curds and whey in your dairy. Do you still manage a dairy, Michelle?”

“Yes, madame, but a small affair, not to be compared to that which you
remember.”

“And your good husband? I hear he is something of a student. Do you
find time to assist him in his studies?”

“No, madame; on the contrary, he assists me to plough a furrow to make
the garden, to gather in our crops.”

“Indeed?” Jeanne raised her eyebrows in such supercilious surprise that
Alaine clapped her hands.

“You have not forgotten, Jeanne. You will do! I feel myself quite
crushed by your elegance.”

Jeanne threw aside her robe and the turkey-tail she carried for a
fan and jumped to her feet. “But it would weary me, it would weary
me. Ciel! when I remember the hours one must sit trussed up in tight
clothes!” She gave her shoulders a hitch. “It wearies me but to
remember it. No, I will not return to civilization, Alaine.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I don’t know. As my brother would say, I will do the Lord’s will.” The
light was sinking in the sky. Outside howled the wolves and the wintry
winds; it was desolate, desolate. But with the touch of spring would
come the Iroquois roused to action, and those who ventured from their
fortified places might never expect to see home again. Better, safer,
to go farther up the country away from the bordering river lands, to
fear no worse foe than the beasts of the forests, thought Jeanne. She
sank into the big chair and rested her chin in her hands. “Life is
sweet; it is strange that it is so; and if we go away yonder we may
face terrible death. Better to slip out of the world and die by wasting
disease than to be captured and tortured. Shall we not stay, Alaine? We
can go far from the dangers of war. Who cares for the glory of France
or England now?” She sat gazing into the fire, her dark hair, which
she had unbound to play the lady, falling about her face. “Petit Marc
says there will be war-parties everywhere when the spring opens,” she
continued. “One cannot be safe anywhere along the border.”

“I would rather die by the way,” Alaine cried out. “I will go, Jeanne;
I must.” Then, after a pause, “I am selfish, Jeanne. I will not have
you go with me. I will not allow you to take the risk of capture or a
worse death. I will find the way somehow.”

Jeanne sat up straight. “We will go together. Enough said. As well one
way as another. Would it be worth my while to stay alone? If death, the
sooner I meet Antoine. If capture, I can bear it. I am used to the ways
of the Indians; it might not be so hard to me, after all. Yes, we will
go, Alaine. I fear more for you than for myself, that is all.”

Therefore, before the last snows had melted or the first bluebird had
come, Alaine set free her pets: the squirrel which had become so tame
that he would hide his nuts in her hair; the rabbit which hopped after
her everywhere she went, and which now scurried off into the nearest
brush; the cunning fox-cub with his bright, sharp eyes, which had been
wont to curl himself up into a sleepy ball in her lap, but which now
pricked up his ears and set out jauntily to seek adventures. “Adieu,
my little friends,” sighed Alaine; “you go into the woods where are
enemies you know not of, and I go my way into like dangers. We shall
never see each other again.” She watched them disappear. Into what
perils were they going who seemed to be so glad of freedom? The talons
of an eagle, the fangs of a wolf, the bullet from a hunter’s rifle,
might end the existence of any or all of them before night.

She turned sadly away to join Petit Marc and Jeanne, who, standing
side by side, seemed as if they might be the children of a giant race.
As they passed by the two graves under a sombre pine they all paused;
Jeanne knelt, the other two walked on. A few moments later Jeanne
joined them; she did not look back, nor did she have jest or word for
either of her companions until they reached the water’s edge, where
Marc made ready to launch his canoe.




CHAPTER XIV

PIERRE, THE ENGAGÉ


During all these months it had not fared well with Pierre Boutillier.
A baleful star seemed to control his life. Of a poetic, morbidly
religious temperament, he was of the stuff of which martyrs are made.
His love for Alaine represented the poetry of his nature; his voluntary
sacrifice the depth of his religious fervor. Had he remained in the
Roman Church he would probably have entered some austere order of
monks, and, by repeated scourgings and penances, would have become a
saintly father; as it was, he was resolved that his love demanded a
consecration of his life, and he sailed away in search of a battle to
fight or a martyrdom to endure.

The martyrdom was in sight when he approached the shores of Guadaloupa.
It had been but two or three years since he had escaped from that
place, a slave running away from a cruel master. It was the policy of
those who led the persecution of the Huguenots to make the life of the
engagé as hard as possible, as a warning to those uncertainly arrayed
upon the side of the Protestants and as a means of compelling any to
conform. Therefore, half-starved, beaten, hard worked, the poor engagé
lived till his strength failed under the burning suns and he died,
less considered than the beasts of the field.

It was with a momentary feeling of weakness, of heart-sickness, and
desire to retreat that Pierre set foot on shore. He could feel the lash
of the whip, he could hear the coarse jeers, the taunts, the curses. He
could see the face of his master, insolently cruel. He stood a moment
irresolutely looking about him, and then slowly proceeded toward a
building the use of which he seemed to know. Here were various offices,
and here he would find the ship’s lists. Was there one Theodore Hervieu
upon them? If so, where could he be found? A man with keen eyes rapidly
examined the lists. No, there was no one of that name. Still, one
could not tell; there were those who were sent out as convicts under
assumed names. It might not be impossible to find such a one. Yet, it
took time and money. A good ransom offered, and there would probably
be a response if the man were still alive. Was there anything in it
for one who knew the methods? if so---- Pierre shook his head. No, not
much; the man was an engagé, Huguenot, he had promised friends to make
inquiry.

“Pouf!” A wave of the hand dismissed all interest in the subject. “Let
him go. He is dead, in all probability, and a good riddance. It would
take weeks to follow it up, unless one had a certain clue?” And the
official settled himself back, while Pierre went out and gazed up the
long road. He stood for a moment thinking, and then slowly advanced up
the dusty way leading to the plantation he best knew.

He had no need to travel far. His was not a face to forget; he had not
walked far when he came face to face with the man who called himself
his master, and from whom he had escaped three years before. The
recognition was mutual; the red-faced, testy man who confronted the
pale young Huguenot raised his heavy stick. “Dog of a Huguenot! Knave!
Vile renegade! You dare to return and face me!” The stick descended
upon Pierre’s head and shoulders, blow after blow fell until, bruised
and unconscious, he lay at his master’s feet, to remain there till some
one could be sent to take him up and bear him to the slave’s quarters
on the plantation, there to lie, bereft of reason, for days. “He shall
have the full benefit of the lash when he is able to stand up!” roared
the planter. “Did he think to fool me? I do not forget faces, and he
shall serve his time and then double it, the impudent whelp. Let me
know when he is on his feet.” And to this prospect Pierre was to awaken.

Meanwhile, from the port of New York had set out a vessel laden with
merchandise for the Carriby Islands. The cargo, carefully selected,
was looked after by one of the owners of the vessel, who, sailing
southward, would carry his goods to be exchanged for sugar, molasses,
and rum, with such articles as could readily find a sale in the burgh
of New York. He was a tall, well-formed young fellow, this trader,
who talked little, thought much, and saw a great deal. He had made his
journey into the wilds of the country, and had proved himself a good
man in the matter of bringing home pelts, and this being his first
venture in foreign fields, he was more than usually concerned. Beyond
this, another matter lay very near his heart, for, with practical
forethought, along with this expedition, which he hoped would benefit
him financially, he was bent upon carrying out a plan over which he
had spent many hours of thought. This was nothing more nor less than
the release of one Theodore Hervieu, who, he had heard, was bondman
in Guadaloupa, for Lendert Verplanck was setting about his errand in
a very different way from that which suggested itself to the less
practical Pierre. He would hunt up Pierre, and the two would proceed to
discover M. Hervieu. They would return and let Alaine’s father decide
which was the better man of the two.

Lendert measured Pierre by his own standards, and had not much faith in
the young Huguenot’s efforts at liberating M. Hervieu. In his quiet way
Lendert had observed a great deal, and he felt sure that, ardent and
zealous as Pierre might be, his plans would lack system, and so fall
short of their object. The matter had been given careful thought by
the young Dutchman. He knew the laws of the colony forbade a marriage
without the consent of parents, and the thing, therefore, was to obtain
M. Hervieu’s consent, and then his own mother’s approval. Lendert
realized that he had set himself something of a task, but his slow
persistence in overcoming difficulties would avail him much, and he
would take time. Yes, he would not go about it with a rush, as Pierre
did; he would take time.

And so he sailed to Guadaloupa, sold his cargo, made his inquiries,
learned next to nothing, and then sailed home again to think it over
and to decide what to do next. He returned to find Alaine lost, Pierre
still absent, and no light anywhere to guide him. But true to his
usual method of proceeding, he resolved to take time to think about
what to do next, not counting Alaine lost to him till it were proved
so, and not believing Pierre dead till he found out that there was no
possibility of his being alive. Then he decided that the next thing to
do was to make another trip and find Pierre, about whose movements he
had further satisfied himself, and had evidence that he had shipped for
Guadaloupa and had landed there. Before he should go Lendert determined
that he would first see Michelle and Papa Louis to discover if they had
anything to add to their first news of Alaine’s disappearance. Next he
would see his mother, and then he would make his second trip, having
a little more now to put into his next cargo. Having arranged this
business, he set out for New Rochelle.

It was with some moderate excitement that Trynje Van der Deen ran up to
the goede vrow De Vries one morning in May. Two Frenchmen were below
asking shelter. Were they to be admitted? Might they not be spies? The
lad, to be sure, had a pretty face and the man looked pleasant, and
both were dressed rather oddly. Trynje was suspicious, and would the
mistress of the house say what was to be done?

In all her breadth of petticoats the lady descended to the yard where
stood the two wayfarers. The elder could speak no Dutch and knew but
little English; the other could speak a little of both, and assured the
goede vrow that they but wanted shelter and directions for reaching New
York. “We are Huguenots,” was announced, “and have escaped many perils
and have gone through many adventures.”

Madam De Vries looked the little figure over, and saw that the tanned,
roughened hands were slender and the brown eyes wistful and full of
intelligence.

“We are not beggars; we are but unfortunates who escape from our
enemies,” said the lad, in broken English.

“Take them to Maria,” said Madam, turning to Trynje; “she can see that
they are lodged and fed. When they are satisfied and are rested, fetch
the boy to me.”

Trynje obeyed and cast many curious looks at the graceful lad, who ate
heartily enough, but seemed ill at ease under the girl’s scrutiny. Yet
he followed her willingly when summoned to return to the house.

Trynje ushered her charge into Madam’s presence, and stood waiting to
hear what was to be said next. “You need not stay, Trynje,” said Madam.
“Go and look after the looms for me like a good child.” Trynje smiled
and obeyed. She rather liked this intimacy which the treatment of her
as a daughter of the house implied.

Madam sat silent for a few moments after Trynje left, her eyes
observing closely the figure before her. “I want a boy about the
place,” she said in French. “Will you stay and work for me? My son is
away, gone on some mysterious errand, and I am much alone. Were it not
for my little friend who gives me her frequent presence, I should be
left with only my servants. Can you read and write?”

“In French, yes. A little, also, in both Dutch and English.”

Madam nodded with a satisfied air. “Better and better. Will you stay? I
will pay you well.”

Alaine’s lips twitched. It seemed an amusing situation. Should she
disclose her sex? She would not without first speaking to Jeanne. “I
must consult my uncle,” she replied.

“Ah, yes; he is your uncle?”

“Not really, but the same as one; but for him I should be farther from
home than I am now.”

“At all events, then, you can stay awhile. I can find plenty for both
of you to do. My overseer has fallen ill, and there is not any one who
can take his place; perhaps your uncle would help me there, and for
you I can find writing to do. I have need of a secretary, being given
to other employments which I like better than that of writing letters.
Let me see, you must be better clad. My son’s clothes would be much too
large for you. We will see what can be done. Call Trynje for me; you
will find her in the sitting-room by this time.”

Alaine withdrew and summoned the girl, who ran ahead, Alaine slowly
following.

From her chatelaine, from which depended many articles, Madam took a
big key. “Go to the large chest, the oak one on the west side of the
upper hall, and bring me a roll of linen,” she bade Trynje. “We must
contrive a shirt for this boy, whom I shall take into the house.”

A red flush mounted to Alaine’s cheek, but she stood watching Trynje’s
movements. As the girl knelt before the chest the sun shone on her
yellow hair and smote the red of her cheek. She was a pleasant-looking
little Dutch maid, round-faced and blue-eyed, slow of movement and of
speech. Alaine waited while she brought the roll of linen and dropped
it into Madam’s lap.

“This will do,” said that lady. “Here, boy, kneel here and I will
measure you. Truly he has a pretty face,” she said aside to Trynje, and
Trynje smiled at Alaine, who in good fellowship smiled back, and then
Trynje dropped her eyes.

“Roll up the sleeve of that jerkin you wear,” Madam commanded, and
Alaine obeyed. The firm, smooth arm, muscular and strong as it was,
seemed too shapely and delicate for a boy, and Madam dropped the linen,
looking searchingly into the girl’s face. “Stand up,” she said, and she
herself arose, laying her hand lightly upon the girl’s shoulder. Then
she laughed. “Here, Trynje,” she cried, “your blushes were for naught;
’tis not a boy at all, but a girl. Tell us your story, little maid. I
might have known from the first.” And Alaine, smiling and blushing,
gave an account of herself, but said nothing of her companion.

“So! So!” cried Madam. “Such a romance, and your lover is probably
there waiting for you.”

“My lover?” Alaine gasped.

“Yes; not that kidnapping Frenchman, but the one you say has gone to
rescue your father. He will have returned. Yes, yes, I see, we must not
detain you too long. Go now with Trynje and let her dress you up. I
would see how you look in the dress that best becomes a maid.” She gave
her a gentle push toward Trynje’s outstretched hand of invitation. “She
has a romance too, has Trynje,” Madam continued, playfully. “Let her
tell it you.”

Alaine followed the sturdy little Dutch girl, and was herself soon
petticoated and pranked out to Trynje’s delight. Alaine regarded
herself in the glass. “It does not so become me as you,” she remarked,
“for I have not your fair skin and yellow hair. I do not look like a
Dutch girl with my crop of curls instead of those long yellow braids.”

Trynje laughed. “No, but you will do. Come, I will take you down to
Madam.”

“And the romance?” Alaine paused to ask.

Trynje looked down. “It is that Madam desires me for her
daughter-in-law.”

“And you?”

“My parents do not know this; they have another in view.”

“But you prefer this one?”

Trynje shook her head. “I do not tell that,” she replied, laughing.

Madam struck her hands softly together as the two reappeared. “A better
maid than man,” she cried. “Go fetch the Frenchman, Trynje; we will
surprise him. Hurry back and let us see you both together.” She laughed
as she looked again at Alaine’s curly head. “Yes, one can see that you
are not a Dutch girl,” she said. “There, place yourself in that corner
and Trynje by your side.” She turned them from the light when Trynje
returned to take her place, and then at Jeanne’s entrance she went
forward to meet her. “I am glad to receive and entertain travellers,”
she said, graciously. “M. Crepin, let me present you to Trynje van der
Deen and----” But Jeanne perceived and joined in the laugh. “Alaine!”
she cried. “Thou, little one, art discovered.”

“Madam wished to employ me,” said Alaine, “but now she understands----”

“She still wishes you to remain as long as you will if you will do her
the service of helping her to manage her affairs.” She looked at Jeanne.

“We thank you, madam,” said Jeanne, with a bow which would have done
François Dupont credit. “My niece there is greatly wearied. It is no
small journey to take, and when there is war in the land there is more
danger to be looked for than that of rapid streams and wild beasts.”

“He who led you thither, where is he?”

“He left us when we were safe in English possessions.”

“I would have had him here also, for he must be as brave as yourself. I
am alone, save for my servants, and I stand in continual fear of a raid
from some of your Indians. Yet, I do not wish to leave. I expect my son
at any time, and hope I can persuade him to remain. I manage this place
with the help of an overseer and the servants, but one needs also a man
of one’s own family. When he marries,” she glanced at Trynje, “I can
hope to keep him at home.”

The two girls had retired to the window. Jeanne noted the direction of
Madam’s glance. “It is, then, your future daughter-in-law that we see?”

“It is my future daughter-in-law,” replied Madam, compressing her lips.
“My son must obey my desire in such a matter. You will remain, M.
Crepin?”

“Till chance favors our journey farther.”

“A few days more or less can make no difference.”

“Delays are dangerous, and hope deferred maketh the heart sick. The
child there has friends who mourn for her, who sicken with doubt and
dread.”

“I understand that, yet I would fain detain you till my son returns.
He can give you the best information about reaching your home, and
will see that you have safe conduct down the river to Albany. The girl
has led too rough a life, I fear, but I would like to give Trynje a
young companion, yet I wonder would it be safe for her.” She spoke
reflectively, as if not addressing any one, but upon Jeanne’s face came
a look such as her brother wore upon occasions.

She controlled herself, however, and said, simply, “The girl is a good
child, madam. I have guarded her as my own daughter. She is as pure and
sweet as yonder maiden could possibly be.”

“But she has spent days in the company of rough men, has heard their
ribald jests, their low songs.”

“She has not, for in her presence, boy though they supposed her to be,
they dared not say or sing anything she might not hear.”

Madam smiled. “The fact does you credit.” She waved her hand as if to
dismiss the subject.

Jeanne bowed. After the storm and stress of the past few weeks it
would not be unpleasant to take a little rest. “Meanwhile,” continued
Madam, with a bright glance at Alaine, “we will contrive to get word to
the girl’s friends. It will be enough that they know she is safe and
will return when opportunity allows. Yes, that is how we must manage
it, and then you need be in no haste to depart. I will myself send
letters to Orange.” She leaned her head on her hand and looked out and
beyond the tall figure before her into the light of spring. Jeanne felt
herself dismissed, but Madam recalled her. “You will not refuse to join
us at meals, M. Crepin? and if I need the girl’s quick fingers with my
letters, you will not disallow it?”

“We shall both be grateful, madam.”

Madam leaned nearer and asked, “She inherits estates in France?”

“She would if she were disposed to relinquish her religion, otherwise
they are confiscate.”

“Ah! They are fair estates?”

“Very fair. Her father possessed wealth and position, now both will be
transferred to the eldest son of his sister, one Étienne Villeneau.”

“Whom the girl does not fancy?”

“As cousins they were good friends, but as husband and wife, that is
another thing.”

“This other, the wild, piratical Dupont, of whom the girl told me, what
is his object?”

“That, madam, I have yet to learn. He desires to marry mademoiselle, it
would seem.”

“For her possible wealth?”

“I think not.”

“For love of her?”

“Again, I think not.”

“Then, why? I wish I might play the spy on him. It is a pretty tale of
romance of which I would fain see the end. And this Pierre who has
gone in search of the child’s father?”

Jeanne did not show her surprise. She had not heard of Pierre and did
not know that Alaine’s sudden confidence had been given because the
presence of a girl of her own age had invited it. “Of Pierre I cannot
say,” returned Jeanne, after a silence. “It has been some time, you
see,” she added, diplomatically.

“And all these months the girl has worn this strange garb. I wonder she
could so endure it. Twice, she tells me, she has been obliged to don
such a costume for purposes of escape.”

“Evil lines have been hers, but the Lord has delivered her,” replied
Jeanne, piously.

Madam smiled at the incongruity of the speech with the appearance of
the speaker. “You do not disguise yourself, good sir,” she remarked.
“There would be little use in your appearing in the dress of a woman
once you spoke. Yet your face is smooth of beard, and I have seen women
as tall.”

“I have been for many years a companion of the coureurs de bois,”
returned Jeanne, calmly. “I am not unversed in matters of the hunt, in
trapping beasts, and in those manly accomplishments which are known to
the voyageurs.”

“A voyageur? Then sing me one of their songs,” said Madam, laughing.
And the good Jeanne, with a twinkle in her eye, trolled out a boatman’s
ditty, at the sound of which Alaine and Trynje started from their
place by the window and came toward them.

“Good!” cried Madam, clapping her hands when Jeanne had finished. “It
was a well-answered test, monsieur. I trust that you will pardon me for
putting you to it. Strange and doubtful as your story may have seemed,
I believe it, and that you are in very truth what you seem.”

Jeanne burst into a laugh. “For once, madam, your penetration is at
fault, for I must contradict you. I, also, am a woman.”

“Impossible!” Madam drew herself away a little.

“Even so, and my own story, though not in the same way romantic, may
not be uninteresting to you.”

“Will you tell it?”

Jeanne began monotonously, but by degrees her natural dramatic fire
crept into it, and at the end the tears were dropping from Madam’s
eyes. She caught Jeanne’s hand in hers. “Stay with me,” she cried; “I,
too, have been bereft. I will not constrain you, but stay with me as my
guest.”

“As your servitor, for a season; but I have promised, and I must
perform. I must see the girl safe at home, and then what is ordered
will come next. I am all unused to delicate living, and I pray you
house me among those who work in your fields.”

“As you like; I will give you quarters to yourself, and hope you may be
comfortable, but you are my guest, none the less.”

She could be very gracious, this Madam De Vries, but she could be none
the less haughty, imperious, and obstinate, as Alaine found before
two days were over. The servants stood in awe of her, yet grumbled
over the insistence with which an unimportant point was often carried.
Uncompromising and unyielding as she was when angered or crossed, she
was uniformly gentle to Trynje, whom she did not hesitate to call
daughter. She was impulsive and changeable, too, and impatient of
those who disagreed with her. Just now it pleased her to make much of
these uninvited visitors who appealed to her imagination and love of
excitement.

The plantation, some miles from Albany, was one of those comfortable
Dutch estates which thrift and industry had secured to its owner, who,
dying, left it to his widow to carry on in the same competent way, and
it was by no means a bad place to live.

After a discussion of the matter, Madam agreed that both Jeanne and
Alaine should retain the dress in which they had arrived. “It will
cause less comment,” she said, “and until she is safe in her home I do
not feel that the girl may not be tracked by the Dupont.”

“Which is my own opinion,” agreed Jeanne. “He is indefatigable; he is
a born intriguer; he stands at nothing, and he may yet find a way to
discover us, once she assumes her own dress.”

“It is like a play,” said Madam, “and it is vastly exciting. To protect
the girl, then, I agree, and if any come prowling around the place
questioning the servants, they will have no tales to tell.”

And therefore Alaine changed the short gown and petticoat for a linen
shirt and breeches. Yet she was kept indoors, and, amid much laughter
from Trynje, would sew or spin when no one else was nigh to observe
her. Out of doors both she and Jeanne occupied themselves in such
employment as was agreeable to them and which would keep them apart
from the other workers, and Madam’s private garden promised to thrive
well in consequence. It pleased Madam’s fancy not to let them go, and
day after day some excuse was made to detain them longer. It is not
improbable that she would have enjoyed somewhat a descent upon them by
François Dupont, and that she was not without hope that it would take
place; then she, at the head of her retainers, would drive him off,
and it would be a pleasant and exciting diversion without the danger
included in another incursion, such as those by the Indians.

Trynje attached herself devotedly to this new friend, for she was
not without her love of romance either, amiable and prosaic as she
appeared. But it was romance in which others, rather than herself,
were concerned, which most interested her. These affairs required no
puzzling solutions, no sleepless nights, nor uncomfortable situations.
So far as she was concerned she was satisfied that others should
direct her way, and what was nearest and easiest would receive her
endorsement. So the two worked side by side, Trynje laughing at the
attempts to speak Dutch which Alaine strenuously made, and the latter
trying to drum into Trynje’s stupid little head a few French phrases.
They could be seen almost any afternoon busy in one corner of the big
sitting-room, while at the other end Madam’s head could be observed
bending over her letters and accounts.




CHAPTER XV

MADAM, MY MOTHER


It was one day a week or so later that Alaine came upon Madam pacing
the floor in deep thought. She looked up as the girl came in. “My son
arrives to-night,” she said, abruptly, “and I have been thinking will
it be best that he meet you as girl or boy. If as boy, you would best
not appear at table; if as girl, we must announce the cause of the
masquerade to him and to the rest of the household.”

“Oh, madam, permit me to keep in the background,” returned the girl. “I
would much rather it should be so; and if we take up our journey again,
it will be best that I do not alter my dress till I am safe at home;
you remember that we decided so.”

Madam stood considering; then she smiled. “Taking all things into
consideration, I think it will be best; and you need not neglect
Trynje, but leave her only when my son seems to desire to be with her.
I think,” she smiled again, “he will desire it the more because of the
presence of a handsome lad. Yes, that is it; we will make him jealous.
So, put on your most devoted air; you are a head taller than Trynje,
and will seem quite a possible rival.”

Alaine laughed. She rather enjoyed the humor of the situation.

“I do not know much about your son,” she ventured to say. “Trynje will
not talk of him, and when I try to bring the conversation that way she
only laughs and changes the subject.”

“He is very triste these days,” continued Madam. “I do not know why,
though he is never very communicative, this son of mine. He says little
of his affairs, and I shall not tell him all of mine. He and Trynje
have been playmates from youth, and she still calls him Bo, as she did
when a tiny child and he tried to teach her the English for boy.”

“Must I take my meals with you, madam?”

“You would rather not? I can understand that it might be awkward; then
Maria and Johannes shall have your company if you do not mind.”

“I do not mind at all.”

“Then it is settled, and perhaps we shall have a wedding before June,
who knows? Trynje has deep affections once they are given, but she has
pride as well. Now, then, let us see how well you can act your part in
this pretty play.”

In the dusk of the evening there was the sound of trampling of hoofs
outside by the porch. Madam arose. “Come, Trynje,” she called, and
Trynje ran forward, leaving Alaine in the shadowy corner where they
had been sitting. The door opened, and by the waning light Alaine saw
a tall form embrace Madam, saw Trynje’s little plump hand carried to a
man’s lips, then as the waning light fell upon the man’s face she saw
the smile of Lendert Verplanck.

“Lendert!” she whispered, and then she dropped back again upon the
settle. “Lendert!” She sat there staring for a moment before she made
her escape to her little room above-stairs which Madam had insisted
upon her occupying. Her heart was beating tumultuously, her head
throbbing. She threw herself face down on the floor. “My Lendert! My
Lendert!” she whispered. “He has forgotten me. I dare not make myself
known. I must try to get away without his knowledge, for there is
Pierre and here is Trynje, who love me. Jeanne must know, and she will
help me.” She lay there sobbing convulsively till her first tumult
of grief was spent, and then she arose and knelt by the window, her
elbows on the sill. The little latticed casement was open, and through
it was wafted the mysterious sweetness of May, the sweetness of
new-born leaves, of blossoms shaking out their perfume to the winds.
So perilously sweet the season to those who love, for the promise of
bliss, of beauty, the expectant hush covering things as yet wrapped in
mystery, the almost answer to everlasting questions, these are conveyed
to the heart of youth on a May night. Unutterable thoughts came to the
girl as she leaned out and felt the breath of evening on her hot face.
Her yearning heart mounted to the skies bearing the enduring “Why?” and
again her eyes overflowed.

A light step along the hall was followed by a tap on the door. “Where
are you, little runaway?” came from Madam in a bantering tone. “This is
not keeping your word. My son has gone to smoke his pipe on the stoop
with our manly Jeanne, who has actually joined him. Did she learn to
smoke from the Indians? Trynje is watching for you. It is all very
good, for I have had a word with my son, and he has said, ‘We will talk
of it after a while; if it be so great a desire with you, madam, my
mother, I will try to yield to your wishes. One must marry, I suppose,
and why not Trynje as well as another? She is an amiable little girl.’
So, you see, it is as good as settled. Now to make him jealous, and he
will think she wears many more virtues than the one of amiability.” She
had come in and stood by Alaine’s side. “You have had your supper?”

“No, not yet.”

“And so late. Fie upon you for a bashful child! Go along and get it
at once, and then come to us.” And she swept out, leaving Alaine with
hands nervously clinched and trembling with overwrought feelings.

“Why do I not die?” she moaned. “God knows I have tried to do my duty.
I have tried,--I want to do it. O God, why are the hearts of women so
weak and their love so strong? My heart will break,--it will break!
He has forgotten me!” She leaned her face against the casement. Hark!
it was his voice there below. He spoke to Jeanne. She could hear
distinctly the slow, deliberate tones. Oh, let her not lose this one
happiness before she accepted the inevitable misery of flying from him!

He spoke slowly in halting French. It was evident that he had heard
something of Jeanne from his mother, and believed her to be simply a
sort of upper gardener. “You are Rouennaise, I think you say,” Alaine
heard him remark.

“From near Rouen, but I left there many years ago.”

“Perhaps you knew a family of the name Hervieu.”

“I knew them well; they were among those who stood high in the parish
of my brother.”

There was silence for a moment while Lendert puffed at his great pipe.
“This family, I have met a member of it. They became Protestant.”

“A part of the family did and fled the country.”

“Yes, but one has since returned, I have been told.”

“I had not heard of it. M. Theodore Hervieu, I suppose.”

“No, his daughter.”

Jeanne leaned forward and peered into the other’s face. “I think you
are mistaken,” she said.

“I know it to be true,” Lendert continued.

Jeanne laughed and leaned back again against the railing of the porch.
“Then we do not speak of the same family. There are several of the
name.”

There was silence again. Alaine above there, with the whispering
leaves saying a hundred things to her, leaned farther out.

After a long pause Lendert spoke again, as with difficulty. “This young
lady’s name was Alaine Hervieu, the adopted daughter of one Louis
Mercier and his wife Michelle. I know them all. She saved my life,
and--I was ill at their house there in New Rochelle. She disappeared.
They mourned her as dead, but she is married, they afterwards learned.
I have seen them; they told me. They had just received word from
France. She was there, the wife of François Dupont. I would rather she
were dead. She is dead to me. She has abjured her faith and will remain
among her relatives in France.”

“It is all a lie,” said Jeanne, quietly.

“It cannot be. I saw the letter myself.”

There was a swift running of feet along the hall and down the stair.
In the doorway appeared a slight figure, and a voice cried, “Lendert!
Lendert! I am not dead! I am not married! I am here!”

Down went the great pipe with a clatter to the ground. The sweet,
shrill, imploring tones rang out upon the May night. With one stride
Lendert reached her where she stood poised upon the door-sill.
“Alaine!” he cried. “Oh, thou good God! It is Alaine!” And then Jeanne
stepped in between them, but Lendert swept her aside.

“Shame upon you, girl!” The words came from Madam De Vries, who,
shaking with anger, saw the two standing as one before her. “Lendert,
what does this mean? Girl, go to your room!”

But Lendert held her fast. “It means, madam, that this Alaine Hervieu
is the woman to whom before God I have pledged myself. I have vowed to
marry no other, and I will not.”

“An outcast, a beggar, a creature of my bounty, a companion of coureurs
de bois and of wandering women! You would take such to your home,
present her to your mother, smirch your honest name----”

“Stop!” Jeanne strode forward, anger on her face and blazing from her
eyes. “You, who are a woman, dare to say that to one who has been
afflicted so sorely! You, a mother, can dare to cast your venomous
slurs at an innocent, motherless girl, who but yesterday roused your
compassion and drew tears from your eyes by the recital of her wrongs!
Beware, lest Heaven’s curse----” She paused and dropped her hand raised
in malediction. “Monsieur,” she said, turning to Lendert, “the girl is
now my charge, and has been under the protection of my brother, a holy
man, from her birth up, with the exception of the few years with the
Merciers. I am ready to vouch for her innocence and goodness as for an
angel’s.”

Lendert leaned his head down till his cheek touched Alaine’s curly
head resting against his encircling arm. “I should never question
it,” he answered. “She is Alaine, and that is enough. I love her. I
could never doubt her, having once known her. There is no need of your
defence of her, yet I thank you for it.”

“Come to me, my child,” Jeanne ordered, and Alaine slipped from
Lendert’s hold to hers.

“Tell your story, monsieur,” Jeanne continued. “Though I do not doubt
your faithfulness, I must be as particular in my knowledge of who you
are as Madam would be of her son’s wife. You are Madam’s son, yet your
name is Verplanck.”

“My mother has been twice married,” said Lendert. “I am her son by
her first marriage. Some months ago I met Mademoiselle Hervieu. She
interposed herself between me and death. She and her adopted parents
took me in, a stranger, and for weeks cared for me as for one of their
own flesh and blood. I saw and loved Alaine. I gave her my vows and my
promise to return and marry her. We parted. I had a mission to perform;
it is not yet done, but I determined when it proved successful to
return and claim her, trusting to my mother’s good sense and affection
not to oppose my happiness. I went to New Rochelle. I saw Michelle and
Louis Mercier. They showed me a letter they had received from François
Dupont, he who stole their child away; it was written in Canada; it
assured them that Alaine was safe, was well and happy; that she was
married to him, and that they were about to depart for France. There
were messages from Alaine, and it all seemed as if true.”

“That evil-doer,” muttered Jeanne. “It was all a ruse, monsieur, to
prevent further action on the part of her friends. I do not know what
he hoped to gain by it. Mademoiselle Hervieu left Quebec in the company
of my brother six months ago. She has not seen François Dupont since
that time. It is quite true that he carried mademoiselle off and would
have married her, but, fortunately, my brother was the instrument
in God’s hands to prevent it. It is a long story; we will discuss
it later. At present our entire desire is to leave here and reach
Manhatte.”

“Which you shall do, and the sooner the better. My roof no longer
affords you shelter,” said Madam, bitterly.

Lendert’s sleepy eyes half closed. “Mademoiselle Hervieu is under no
obligation to you, madam, my mother, for your son is alive through her
defence and her protection. The obligation is upon the other side.”

“There is no obligation where there is a graceless, disobedient son who
perjures himself and defies his mother.”

“Perjures himself?”

“Did you not, an hour since, promise to marry Trynje van der Deen?”

“I said I would consider it after a while, but there was then nothing
of all this. My troth to Alaine I believed severed by her marriage. Now
it is different.”

“You cannot marry without my consent; the laws of our colony forbid.”

“Then I will not marry while Alaine is free.”

“And Trynje?”

Trynje had come out and was listening wonderingly. She nestled her hand
in Alaine’s and spoke up. “Trynje, madam, does not desire to marry
Lendert Verplanck. She prefers to let her parents select for her. You
have shown her how very unpleasant a mother can be, and Trynje does
not like discord. Lendert Verplanck, I am Alaine’s friend; I love her.
I wish her happiness, and my own will not suffer by reason of you, be
sure of that.”

Madam standing alone in the doorway with all arrayed against her awoke
Trynje’s pity, and she went over to her. “Dear Madam De Vries,” she
said, “it would be a very pleasant thing if you would agree with the
rest of us and let us be merry over this instead of angry. It was but
this morning that you spoke very sweetly of Alaine, and she is the same
now as then.”

Madam withdrew the hand Trynje had taken. “Little fool,” she muttered,
“if you had but claimed your own we could yet have our own way.”

“I am having my way,” returned Trynje, “only it isn’t your way, madam.”

“She is not the fool she would seem,” remarked Jeanne, in an aside.

“Good little Trynje!” cried Lendert.

Trynje stood a moment looking wistfully from one to the other. She did
not enjoy this disturbance, but she had a happy consciousness of having
done what made it easier for all but Madam.

“Go, girl!” Madam commanded Alaine in a hard tone. “Go, take off the
clothes my bounty has provided for you. Your rags Maria will return to
you. I want never to see your face again.”

“Nor your son’s?” asked Lendert.

“Nor his, unless he agrees to bring Trynje home to me. All this would
then be his. Otherwise he can leave my roof; his disobedience casts him
out.”

“It is not the first time I have been cast out,” replied Lendert, with
some bitterness. “My first opposition to your wishes brought me that.”

“You will not find it necessary to repeat the experience,” responded
Madam. “These lands belong to the widow of Pieter De Vries, and not to
the son of Kilian Verplanck. Come, Trynje, we will go in. I do not turn
you away.”

Trynje did not budge, but held Alaine’s hand tightly in hers. “I am
sorry not to oblige you, madam, but I can’t let Alaine sleep in the
woods to-night. I shall take her to my mother.”

“The wench has slept often enough in the woods,” sneered Madam. “You
do not need to spare her; she is not used to a delicate life, we know
that.”

“The more that she should be spared further privation,” spoke up the
spunky little Trynje. “If you will get my horse and your own, Lendert
Verplanck, we can all travel together, and can reach home in an hour.”

“No, no, Trynje, dear little Trynje,” whispered Alaine. “I will not
take you away; it is not safe going at night through the woods.”

“As safe for me as for you, and perhaps safer than a settlement. Then,
I wish to go. I want my mother.”

Tears came to Alaine’s eyes, and she bent over and kissed the girl’s
soft cheek. This loyalty of Trynje’s touched her deeply.

It was not long before the little party was ready to start, Alaine and
Jeanne mounted on Trynje’s horse, and Trynje behind Lendert upon his
own steed. They left a silent house, from the windows of which not a
light gleamed, but within whose walls sat a disappointed, obdurate
woman with rage and self-pity gnawing at her heart.

The travellers rode along quietly enough through the woods. The leaves
were yet too sparsely green to shut out the light of the sky, and the
bridle-path was easily followed. Lendert’s watchful eyes kept a sharp
lookout right and left, and his hand upon his gun was ready. Neither
he nor Trynje were great talkers, and they said little. Alaine, on
the contrary, kept up a low-voiced conversation with Jeanne. Neither
Madam’s sharp words nor the painfulness of the entire situation could
take the joy from Alaine’s heart. Above all else arose the one thought:
Lendert loved her; he had not forgotten her. Once or twice she lifted
her face to the twinkling stars whose beams sifted down between the
tender twigs and the little new leaves, and she repeated softly one
of the dear old psalms, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” It
had been a long time since she had heard any one sing them, but soon,
soon she would be at home and free. There was so much she desired to
ask Lendert, so much, for he had seen those dear ones not long ago,
and she busied herself with this or that surmise as she chattered to
Jeanne, and at last she sobered down into pensive recollections of her
old life. What of all her resolves? What of the promise she had made to
herself that she would forget Lendert and remember Pierre? These had
vanished utterly at sight of him to whom her heart was given.

So presently she spoke very gravely. “Dear Jeanne, in those old days in
France I used to go to Father Bisset with all my puzzling questions,
and he always set me right. Now here am I in a sorry uncertainty.
Listen, Jeanne, and tell me what I should do. I have not told you all
this, because I thought I ought to try to overcome my love and think
only of Pierre and his great sacrifice for my sake. Yet, here is
another who loves me so well that he forsakes all else for me, and him
I love. I have tried not to. I have sought to let my thoughts dwell on
Pierre. And then, at home, Michelle and Papa Louis would have me marry
Gerard, yet I think when my father returns they will see that it is
he who should order my goings. What must I do, dear Jeanne? You saw
that my heart outran my resolve, and I have again confessed my love for
Lendert. Am I not a deceitful wicked thing? I am miserable when I think
of it.”

“What have you promised Pierre?”

“I promised him nothing, for he would not allow it; and furthermore he
told me that I must not be bound, and if in a year he or my father had
not returned, that I must be free to do what seemed best. Before then I
told him I would marry him or whomsoever should be my father’s choice.”

“Then await the end of the year, and if your father returns let him
settle it.”

“But Lendert, my whole heart goes out to him, and if he loves me he
offends his mother, and if I love him I may offend my father, yet each
of us loves only the other.”

Jeanne sighed. “Earthly love is very strong; one cannot always conquer
that at once; yet, my dear, if you ought not to marry Lendert you must
not.”

“You think I ought not to marry him even if his mother should at last
consent?”

“If you gave your promise first to Pierre, and if your father orders
it, you should marry Pierre.”

Alaine’s head drooped lower and lower. Ahead rode Lendert; she could
see his stalwart figure outlined against the dimly soft sky. She felt
that she could leap from her horse, fly to him, beg him to take her
away, away from all her confusing and conflicting problems.

The piteous sigh she gave aroused Jeanne’s compassion. “I am telling
you what is right, my child, as you asked me to do, but remember, when
the year is at an end you will be free to do what your heart dictates.
I think there is no doubt of that.”

“Then you think I shall not see my father again?”

“Or Pierre? I think it is very doubtful.”

“It is terrible, terrible, that I should build any happiness on that.
I will not. I will think they are both to return, and will be patient.
Will you tell Lendert what you have told me it is right to do? Will
you let him know that I must abide by the right at any cost? I am so
weak-hearted that I should yield up my love again to him if he asked
it. When I think of it, Jeanne, I know that love is mightier than
death, for I wish we could die together, he and I, this minute. Is
it not pitiful that love is so strong and will is so weak? I want to
do right. I mean to do right, while every fibre of my being throbs
for Lendert. If I am to be the wife of another I must not let him
even look at me, with the lovelight in his eyes, for mine will surely
answer. Twice in my life for a few moments I have been so happy that
I can believe what heaven is like. It is not given to all of us to
be so happy, even for a few moments, in this world, therefore I must
be satisfied with that and believe that I am more favored than many
women.” Her voice shook, and Jeanne knew without seeing it that her
tears were falling fast.

“Do I not know? Can I not understand?” Into Jeanne’s voice crept a note
of love and longing akin to Alaine’s. “We have been sorely afflicted.
The waves and the billows have gone over us both. It is a wonderful
thing this love of woman for man. None knows how wonderful or how
great but those who have felt it. And none but they can tell how much
a human soul can suffer. I will speak to M. Verplanck, and I think he
will understand and will be patient also. It is very hard for youth to
be patient,” she continued, half to herself. “One must think of the
things for which one must be thankful, then it will not be so hard. You
have been wonderfully delivered more than once, and surely you should
believe that you will be again.”

“I will believe that, dear Jeanne.” Alaine’s arm around Jeanne’s
waist gave her a gentle pressure, and they rode on silently till the
twinkling lights ahead of them showed that they were approaching
a small settlement. In a few minutes a stockade was reached, this
enclosed the fort and blockhouse where dwelt Joachim van der Deen and
his tenant farmers. To the query, “Who goes there?” Trynje answered,
“I, Trynje van der Deen, with friends.” And an immediate admittance was
vouchsafed.

Trynje, helped from her horse by Lendert, went at once toward the door
which was flung wide open in answer to her summons. “Whom have we
here?” asked a stout, red-faced Dutchman. “What is my daughter doing
travelling about this time of night, and who are these in her company?”

“Lendert Verplanck, whom you know, Mademoiselle Hervieu, whom you do
not know, and Jeanne Crepin.”

“They are French?” Joachim van der Deen looked suspicious, and pulled
the door together a little.

“We are Huguenots and refugees, good sir,” interposed Alaine, “and as
your generous Holland has sheltered so many of our faith, we hope we do
not ask in vain for shelter here. I have travelled in this dress for
some months past that I might the more readily escape detection of my
enemies.”

Joachim van der Deen smiled, and, taking Alaine’s hand, he led her to
an inner room where sat his buxom wife. “We have visitors, Johanna,”
he said. “Trynje returns with them. Let her tell her tale while I see
to this gentleman. It is past bedtime and we will retire at once, my
friends, unless you have good reason to remain without a good night’s
rest.”

Trynje poured forth her story into her mother’s ears. The goede vrow
listened attentively, and at the close remarked, triumphantly, “I
always said you would find Madam De Vries a hard mother, and you are
well awake to it now. We shall have no more objections to Adriaen
Vrooman hereafter.”

Trynje blushed and snuggled up to her mother’s side. It was very clear
that she agreed with her, and that when Adriaen returned from his
journey into the distant forests he would receive a smiling reception
from Trynje.




CHAPTER XVI

ONE NIGHT IN MAY


Alaine found herself comfortably lodged, with Trynje’s little negro
maid in attendance on the two girls. Before long they were nestled in
an immense feather-bed which billowed up around them and almost hid
them from sight. Alaine, however, did not sleep. She listened to the
soft breathing of Trynje, who was not many minutes in dropping off
into slumber; she listened to the gentle whisper of the new leaves
and the trickle of a little stream not far away. Into her feeling of
quiet resignation every now and then would burst the recollection of
the wild joy she had experienced at seeing her lover, now lying in a
room so near her. Perhaps he did not sleep. Perhaps Jeanne had found an
opportunity of speaking to him and was even now telling him that though
she loved him she must leave him.

At last, after tossing restlessly on the big feather-bed for an hour,
she softly arose and went to the window to look out upon the beautiful
quiet night. The moon, now on the wane, had not set, but hung low in
the sky, a luminous crescent of misty silver. The garrison of the
little fort, like herself, were watching, and the thought of this took
away her feeling of loneliness. It was not the first time that she
had been received under the roof of a stranger, she reflected. Many
unlooked-for things had befallen her, and any day might bring a new
danger. She was so young and so weary. Was there safety anywhere under
that sky’s broad canopy? Was there rest anywhere under those twinkling
stars?

Hark! She started to her feet. Suddenly upon the midnight air came
the horrible war-cry of the Indians. It seemed to fill the air with a
wild prophecy of death and torture and captivity. In an instant every
one in the fort was awake. There were sounds of stern orders given,
of tramping feet, of the click of triggers, of the rasp of a sword
dropped into its scabbard. Hastily throwing on their clothes, the women
and children, shaking with apprehension, weeping with terror, flocked
together in the blockhouse, Alaine with the rest.

“We are none too well garrisoned,” said a man as he passed her. “Here,
boy, can you shoot?”

Alaine turned. “Try me,” she replied, laconically.

“All right, then; come on.”

For an instant Alaine’s fears gave place to an exultant feeling. If she
must die it would be by the side of Lendert. She heard a shot ring out,
and the cries of the women and children grew fainter as she followed
the covered way which led to the fort from the blockhouse.

Watchful men were stationed at the loopholes, a stern and determined
look upon each face. Alaine looked around her. Where was Lendert?

“Go, my daughter,” whispered some one at her side. “Your place is not
here.”

“I was ordered to remain,” Alaine answered, “and I shall stay. Am I so
poor a shot that I must be denied the right to protect myself? Is not
this as much my place as yours, Jeanne Crepin?”

Jeanne smiled grimly. “Very well, then we will both remain. We may be
privileged to die fighting. Come, we are needed, every man of us.” She
smiled again.

The savages now were rushing violently at the palisades to be met by
a deadly fire from those within. Each time the besiegers fell back to
devise a new method of attack. Once came a glare of torches flaring
up into the night and hurled like fiery rockets at the palisades, but
one after another fell harmlessly to the ground, feebly flickered a
moment and then went out, as the spark of life likewise fled from their
bearers stretched on the ground by the unerring shots from the little
fort.

Alaine had discovered Lendert and had crept to his side. He did not
see her; he was mechanically loading and reloading his musket. On the
other side of the girl Joachim stationed himself to see her do as good
service as any. At last the foe retreated for a brief rest, and Lendert
withdrew his gaze from the loophole to see Alaine standing by him.
“Here? Why are you not safe in the blockhouse, Alaine?”

“I am of more use here,” she replied, “and I would rather be with
Jeanne and--you.” She whispered the last word. “I thought, perhaps God
would let us die together, Lendert. That would be a happier fate than
if I were taken into captivity. See, the east begins to warm into a
rosy color; it will soon be day. Will they leave us then, do you think?”

He folded her hand in his own. “Alaine, so brave thou art. No, they
will not, I think. They are not all Indians.”

The gray light was beginning to steal over the earth, and they could
dimly distinguish the faces of their enemies. In the party were
included a number of coureurs de bois and a few adventurous young
Frenchmen. Alaine looking out upon them as they held their parley,
grasped Jeanne’s arm with a quick exclamation. “He is there! Ah, me!
Again, again! Jeanne, Lendert, do you see him? It is François Dupont!”

“Ah-h!” came a savage growl from Lendert, as he patted his musket
softly. “So, then, I have double need to fight.”

“It will be my dead body alone that he possesses,” said Alaine,
resolutely.

“And it will be over my dead body that he treads to reach yours,”
returned Lendert.

And now Joachim van der Deen strode up. “We have very little water,” he
said. “The attack was a surprise and the supply was short. It has given
out before we knew it.”

Some one presently touched Alaine on the shoulder. It was Jeanne. She
drew her aside. “I shall make the effort to get water. Yonder I see
Ricard Le Nez. If I can escape unhurt at first, I can make myself
known to him and the others. They will not hurt me, once they see I am
French.”

“Jeanne, Jeanne!” Alaine caught her firm, hard hand, “you must not go.”

“I shall go.”

Alaine stood for a moment gazing at her, then she rushed to the
blockhouse and found Trynje. “Give me one of your petticoats!” she
exclaimed. Trynje looked at her in surprise, but obediently slipped off
her upper skirt, which Alaine hastily put on and ran back. “If I see
that she is taken I shall go forth myself,” she said. “François will
not let them torture me, and so----” She went to the nearest loophole
and looked out. Jeanne had just crept from the enclosure and was
stealthily moving toward the spring. If she could go and return in this
gray of morning all would be well. Alaine watched her breathlessly. So
far she was safe.

But presently beyond there, coming down the road from the woods on
the other side, she saw a figure on horseback followed by several men
on foot. She watched eagerly, and presently with a smothered cry she
turned to the man standing by her side. “Lendert, Lendert, it is your
mother, and she does not know!”

A groan escaped Lendert’s lips as he looked out upon the approaching
rider.

“See, see,” Alaine whispered, hoarsely, “she comes perhaps to ask your
forgiveness; she comes to seek you. Lendert, Lendert, I must save her.
No, no, hold me not; I tell you it is I who must go. Do you not see
that one of those out there is François Dupont? Another is Ricard. I
shall not fall into the hands of enemies, for they will recognize that
I am French and will think me here a prisoner. I must go. Lendert, if
you love me, let me go!”

“I cannot. I will not see you killed before my very eyes. They will
fire before they understand.”

“But thy mother, thy mother!”

“Whom I must try to save.”

“No, no; do you not see for you is the danger, for me not so much?”

“I see only that I will go, and that I cannot let you run the risk for
my mother, who ill used thee.”

“No matter, no matter. She has come to seek us. It is too horrible to
see them coming nearer, nearer. Do you not see that for me is only
possible danger, and that for you it is sure death? If you go, I will
surely follow.”

“Then we go together.”

She would have pushed him from her as she tried to escape from the
place, but he held her hand firmly. “We die together,” he groaned.
Still hand in hand they crept from the fort. “Quick, run to your
mother, while I distract their attention; it is the only safe way for
either of us,” Alaine whispered.

But at this moment Jeanne, on her way from the spring, spied the
figure approaching. With head bent low, she dropped her bucket and ran
swiftly toward the path at the end of which awaited such danger for the
unconscious rider.

Lendert, taken off his guard for a second, gazed after her half dazed,
and in this moment Alaine sprang from him and ran, but in an opposite
direction from that which Jeanne was taking. She reached a little mound
and stood there in plain view of the enemy. “I am here, I, Alaine
Hervieu!” she called out in her native French. “I am here, François
Dupont!” At the first instant of her appearance a dozen bullets whizzed
through the air, but none touched her, then from the group parleying
there at the edge of the wood rushed two figures.

Not daring to turn her gaze from them lest their attention be drawn
to Madam De Vries, Alaine stood with face to foe. “She is of us! She
is French!” passed from one to another. “She is perhaps an escaped
prisoner,” and they awaited results.

Meanwhile, Lendert, in an agony of mind over the safety of his mother
and of Alaine, stood, gun in hand, ready to defend either or both.
Madam De Vries had reined in her horse at Jeanne’s approach, had
gathered her little body-guard around her, and as yet was not seen by
the attacking party.

Alaine waited quietly till the two men came up. “You have been
prisoner here?” cried Ricard. “How happens this? She is of us!” he
shouted. “Not a hair of her head must be touched. It is Alaine in
petticoats. You remember, Henri, you, Robert, M. Bisset and his
companion? Well, then, here is one of them,” he called to his comrades.

At this instant François caught sight of Lendert standing at the
entrance of the path to the woods. He gnashed his teeth and shouted.
“Again, villain! At last on equal grounds, face to face and foe to foe.
Take him, you there, Ricard!”

Like a flash Alaine ran from her little hillock and stood before her
lover, who laid about him valiantly while the girl cried, “Again,
monsieur, I am a shield!” But this time the supple body was no defence,
for a dozen hands tore him from her, and he was marched off in triumph.
Then shot after shot came ringing from the fort as well as from the
little company hidden in the woods. The air seemed full of flying
bullets. François was struck down at Alaine’s feet, his hold upon her
gone, so that she was free to run to Ricard, crying, “Save him, save
him, your prisoner there! I beg, I entreat, Ricard, Henri, you who
know me, I fall upon my knees to implore you to spare him and take me
instead! Where is Jeanne? Where is Jeanne?”

Her friend was not far off. “I will do what I can,” she whispered, as
she dragged the distracted girl with her to a place of retreat behind
a huge tree. “Do you not see that you must save yourself? I will do
what I can, I promise you. For yourself, if you would escape, pretend
to have fallen; assume death, now, at once.” Alaine staggered and fell.
Jeanne bent over her and wrung her hands. “Remain here,” she whispered.
“Lie perfectly still and you shall not be harmed.”

Lying flat on the ground behind the big tree, the bullets flying around
her, Alaine, faint with suspense, waited, putting her trust in Jeanne,
who, she believed, would find a way to set Lendert at liberty and would
then return to her.

The moments passed, and at last the sound of firing ceased. The
Indians, believing that those in the fort had received re-enforcements
on account of the furious firing from the party in the woods, and
finding their number was fast decreasing, began a retreat. They were
followed so closely by a sortie from the fort that with yells and howls
they took themselves off, leaving their leader for dead and taking with
them their one unhappy prisoner.

At last Alaine ventured to raise her head. The glory of the May morning
showed the woods gold-green; the rill, which formed the outlet of
the spring, went tinkling on its way as merrily as if its waters,
were unstained by the life-blood of those who lay dead at its banks.
Overhead the birds, startled into stillness by the din of battle, now
began a timid warbling. Under Alaine’s hand frail anemones peeped, and
around her the springing grasses grew. So had it been spring after
spring. Nature, impassive and lovely, smiles upon the agony of earth’s
children and will not tell them the secret of her peace. Alaine sat up
and pushed back the hair from her eyes. Beyond her lay the bodies of
the fallen foe, among them François Dupont. She turned her head and
shuddered. “Lendert,” she said, piteously, “Lendert, where are you?
Jeanne, you said you would come.”

She looked around and listened. There was no answer to her call.
Then she wailed, “He is gone, gone, and I am here!” She stood up and
stretched her hands toward the sky. “Thou God, whom I implored to let
us die together, I am here and he is not. Thou hast forsaken me!”

A kind hand was laid upon her shoulder. “My child,” said Joachim van
der Deen, “why are you here alone? God has not forsaken you.”

Alaine dropped her head on the good man’s arm. “I am desolate,
desolate,” she moaned. “If we had but died together; but now, this
moment, he may be enduring tortures such as I never dreamed of. Ah-h!”
she shrieked in her despair and fell to the ground, hiding her face,
as if she would shut out the frightful possibilities that her misery
suggested to her.

Joachim knelt beside her. “God does not despise the affliction of the
afflicted, my child,” he said, gently. “Trust thou in him, and thou
shalt yet praise him.”

But now that it seemed certain the enemy had departed, from the fort
came trooping the garrison, and then followed the company of women,
little Trynje running ahead. “Alaine, Alaine!” she called; “are you
hurt, Alaine, Alaine?”

She saw her father approaching carrying in his arms the drooping
figure, and she made haste to reach him. “She is not dead, not dead?”

“No, but happily unconscious, poor child!” And in Joachim van der
Deen’s strong arms Alaine was borne indoors, Trynje following,
solicitous and helpful.

Meantime, from out of the woods had issued the little company, whose
coming had served the garrison well and Lendert so badly, Madam De
Vries riding ahead. She was followed by a dozen of her retainers, who
in the shelter of the wood from behind trees had done good execution.
“Though,” said Joachim van der Deen, bluntly, “they would all be
roasting now but for the timely warning of that good Jeanne, whose
bravery would have it seem that we have been entertaining an angel
unawares. Where is she, by the way?” he asked of Trynje, who was
bending over Alaine’s unconscious form. But this no one could tell.
Jeanne had vanished as completely as the enemy. At this report Joachim
looked grave; this might be the performance of a spy, but since there
was no help for it, there was nothing to be done. “Where is Madam De
Vries?” he asked his daughter.

“Gone to find my mother. Heaven knows how she must feel with her only
son a captive.”

Her father shook his head. “She has herself to thank for it. He and
the girl ran to her rescue, though that big Jeanne could have managed
it alone. I must leave this lass to your tender mercies, for there are
others in need of me. She is a brave creature. I shall not soon forget
how I felt to see her standing there facing that horde.”

After Alaine had been carried in and left to the ministrations of the
women, Joachim returned to find his wife among the wounded on the
ground. She was bending over a figure lying motionless upon the tender
young grass. “He lives, Joachim,” she said, looking up, “but I think it
is a desperate case. God have mercy on him.”

“Who is it?” her husband asked, gazing at the waxen face.

“I do not know. I judge he must have been the leader of that company of
Frenchmen by his dress.”

“And our prisoner,” returned Joachim, grimly. “We will take him in with
the rest and see what can be done for him. Here, boys, gently; he is
pretty badly hurt, we shall hardly be able to save him, but we will
do our duty as Christians.” He watched them bear the man away. “Madam
De Vries expressed a wish to see you, Johanna, but you can offer her
little consolation, I fear.”

Johanna van der Deen stood looking after the men who bore François
Dupont to the fort. She was a very religious woman, and one who never
failed to press home her pious truths. She and Madam De Vries had
never been the best of friends, for the former’s lack of seriousness
was not approved by the good Johanna. Moreover, she had heard repeated
a remark of Madam De Vries, a remark which ridiculed her neighbor’s
pious attitude. This was quite enough to determine Madam van der
Deen not to encourage Madam De Vries in her overtures in a matter
of marriage for her son. “Daughter of mine shall not marry a son of
Arianie De Vries,” she had told her husband.

“Lendert is a good young man,” Joachim had answered between puffs of
his pipe.

“There are others quite as good whose mothers are better,” Johanna had
made reply, and Joachim had agreed. Nevertheless, they had allowed
Trynje to visit Madam De Vries, wisely believing that in time she
would see for herself that Madam could be very disagreeable and that
her daughter-in-law might expect to have a stormy time. Thinking of
all this and of how it had come according to their expectations, Madam
van der Deen shook her head. “I will go to her. Poor soul, I fear I
cannot persuade her that she should kiss the rod. It is hard for one
who has desired her own way to find that our ways are not the Lord’s
ways and that we are but as the grass of the field, which to-day is and
to-morrow shall be cast into the oven. Look to that poor creature they
have carried in, and I will come to him later.” And she moved toward
the fort, passing on to enter the blockhouse, where Madam De Vries
sat, cold and tearless.

“My son is captive,” were the words that greeted Johanna van der Deen,
“and I have that girl to thank for it. But for her he would have been
safe at home. Therefore I owe your daughter small thanks for bringing
him here. That is all I wish to say.” She dismissed Madam van der Deen
with a wave of her hand, and she, without a word, went back to the fort
where François Dupont lay motionless, save but for a barely perceptible
flutter of his breast.

Madam van der Deen stood looking at him. Here was an end to human
hopes, ambitions, and all revenge. Even resentment must fade into pity
before this awful shadow which seemed to be hovering over the helpless
man. She sent for a stoup of wine. “It will be of little use, yet one
must try to give him time for repentance,” she murmured. She went
away for bandages and returned to see Madam De Vries bending over the
pallet. There were tears in her eyes. “Some one’s son,” she whispered,
as if to herself; “young and handsome, yet he has the privilege of
death in this way, while my boy----” she shuddered and hid her face in
her hands. “Give me the wine,” she said presently. “I will nurse this
man.” She did not seem to notice that it was Madam van der Deen to whom
she spoke. She moistened the pale lips and stanched the wounds, and at
last the dark eyes opened to look upon the pitying face of a woman.

“This is well,” whispered François. “I am glad you have come, mother. I
think I am dying, and I wanted to die at home in France. I am glad you
are here.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Madam De Vries, soothingly.

“I cannot remember all,” he went on, in a weak whisper, “but they fled
from the British that time in Quebec. Father Bisset took Alaine and
fled. They must have been taken prisoners somehow. I stayed there to
fight for France, for France. You would not have had me do otherwise,
mother.” He closed his eyes, but after a time opened them again. “Where
is the Dutch pig?” he asked. “It was to save him she threw herself
between. Once more she made a shield of her sweet body.”

“Sh!” warned Madam van der Deen, glancing at Madam De Vries, but
François wandered on.

“Is she dead? I did not love her, poor little Alaine, but listen, this
is my confession. I wish to confess. I am dying, you know, and you are
my mother.” He was quiet again.

After a moment he began anew. “It was the Dutchman she loved, I know
that now. I did not think so at first; but, though I did not love her,
I hated him.”

“Madam,” said Johanna, in a low voice, “this is something it were
better you did not hear. Will you go away?” The pity lingered in
Madam’s eyes; as yet she did not understand, and she remained.

“The Dutch pig,” repeated François, “that Verplanck. You are safe now,
Monsieur Le Bœuf.”

Madam De Vries recoiled, all the softness in her face giving place to
horror. “Beast!” she cried. “Beast! And I have pitied you.”

“He may be dying, madam,” said Madam van der Deen, quietly. “Will you
leave us?”

Madam De Vries opened her lips as if to speak, but without another word
she walked away.

François kept up his whispering talk. “Poor little Alaine. I liked
the girl. I would have been kind to her. You who know me, mother, you
believe that. Say that you believe that.”

“Yes.” Madam van der Deen saw that he waited for a reply.

François closed his eyes; he did not seem to hear; his voice was very
weak. “I stayed there in Quebec for France, for France. I have lied for
her, I have suffered for her, and now I die for her. For France.” His
voice died away and he could say no more. He lay very still, and Madam
van der Deen by his side watched him all day. Once or twice Trynje came
to bring word of Alaine, who tossed in fever and babbled incessantly.

Night came, and still François lived. “It would almost seem as if he
might recover,” Madam van der Deen said to her husband as they examined
him.

“He may rally a little, but I think he will never rise from his bed,”
was the reply. “We will do all we can for him, enemy though he is. He
may not be so bad a man, and he is suffering.”

“And he has made others suffer,” returned his wife.

“That is true. Blindness and egotism will always do that.”

Madam van der Deen said nothing. Her narrow religious view made her
behold only a pit of fire for such as François.

Yet the dawn of another day saw him still alive, and so it continued
day after day, a little better, a little worse, while above Alaine,
exhausted by fever, was watched over by faithful little Trynje and her
mother.

Madam De Vries did not tarry long, but took her aching heart back to
her home. “I am a lonely, childless old woman,” she told Trynje, “and I
care not how soon I leave this wretched world. It is woe and misery on
every side.” And when she disappeared into the forest with her little
retinue, Trynje watched her with eyes full of tears. She still gave her
some love and much pity.




CHAPTER XVII

FORGIVENESS


At last there came a day when Alaine, though pitifully weak and pale,
was able to creep out into the open air, supported by the strong arm
of Trynje’s father, solicitously followed by Madam van der Deen and
Trynje, and stared at by a group of tow-headed little children of
various ages.

“I want to go home, Mynheer,” Alaine whispered to the good man, who so
carefully placed her in the big chair which had been set for her under
a spreading tree.

He nodded. “You shall go.”

Trynje, busying herself in tucking a robe around her patient’s feet,
did not hear. “There,” she exclaimed, “you are well placed.” She stood
off and looked at her charge with a satisfied air. “It is good to be
out again, is it not? Are you tired? When you are rested I will tell
you something about myself. I have been keeping it till now to tell
you.” She sat down on the ground by Alaine’s side, her round, smiling
face rosier than ever. “You will get well,” she went on, “for after a
while my wedding will be.”

“What?” Alaine smiled to see the blushes.

Trynje nodded. “Yes, all arranged it is. Last night he was here.”

Alaine laid her hand, now so frail-looking, on Trynje’s plump one. “He
was? And who is he?”

“Adriaen Vrooman. He has returned from a long journey into the woods
with his man Isaac, and they brought many pelts. He is now ready to
marry. Betrothed we are, and married we will be before the winter
comes.”

“And you are happy, Trynje, happy?”

“Oh, yes.” Trynje looked very complacent. She was quite satisfied.

Alaine patted the hand resting on her knee, but as she leaned her head
back against the soft fur which hung over the chair the tears welled up
into her eyes. Madam van der Deen, standing behind her, laid her hand
upon the girl’s head. She looked up and with trembling lips asked, “Is
there no hope, no hope?”

“We have heard nothing, but there is always hope till worst is proved.
Be comforted by that, my child. One there is in there who has less
to hope for than you, for he is helpless, paralyzed, but entirely
conscious, and there he must lie waiting for death to release him, and
with but a misspent life to dwell upon. Yet sinned against he has been,
and forgive him you should.”

Alaine turned her dark eyes upon the goede vrouw’s kind face. “You
mean--who is it, Madam?”

“François Dupont it is.”

“He is here? He lives! But for him----” She turned her head from side
to side as if to deny any possibility of forgiveness.

“He wishes to see you when you are stronger. He has a confession to
make to you.”

“I cannot hear it; not now,” returned Alaine, “not now.”

“Then we will not urge it. Very long his time cannot be. Far beyond
what we looked for he has endured. But I hoped----”

“Hush, hush, mother,” Trynje broke in. “She is not to be troubled by
such things. She her strength must get, and worry her you must not.”
And Trynje looked as severe as she was capable of doing. “I must go in
now, my mother, and I leave you here; very cheerful you must be; of
dying and such things you must not speak. Good stories you must tell of
when you were a little girl, and laugh you must.” She shook her finger
at her mother and ran in.

Alaine sat mournfully gazing around her. Yonder was the woodland path
along which Madam De Vries had approached; there the little spring
to which Jeanne had gone for water; there---- She shuddered and hid
her eyes, as if still before her shrieked and yelled the horde of
bloodthirsty Indians. “I want to go home,” she murmured. “I want to see
Michelle and Papa Louis and Gerard. I am so tired of being away from
home. Will you not take me there?”

“In a little while; as soon as you are able,” Madam van der Deen
told her, gently. And, indeed, it seemed while in the midst of scenes
connected with such terrible memories that she was not likely to
entirely recover. Therefore, to Trynje’s disappointment it was decided
that the invalid should be taken as far as Fort Orange, and, if she
were able to stand the journey, to go from there to New York, still
known as New Amsterdam by these good people.

“And must I remain?” said François, when he was told. “I cannot be left
here to trouble you. Prisoner I am, but I shall be free soon, and I
would die among my own people. I, too, must go.”

Madam van der Deen looked puzzled. It was part of the plan that Alaine
should be removed from his neighborhood, for the mere mention of him
caused the girl such distress that the goede vrouw had determined to
give up a scheme for the meeting of these two, resolved that if one
must be considered that Alaine should be the one. Yet she made a final
effort in François’s behalf and drew a pitiful picture of the man’s
helplessness, his longing for forgiveness, his desire to make his peace
with the world before he left it, so that Alaine, moved to pity, no
longer protested, but faintly said, “Could he be taken away safely?
Does he so desire it?”

“He desires it above all things to be taken to the house of your family
there in New Rochelle. He refers again and again to the goodness of
Madame Mercier, to his own tyrannical spirit, and repeats his longing
to be allowed to die there. I think my husband will have no difficulty
in persuading the authorities to allow it when they see his condition.
He is our enemy and a prisoner, but a helpless one.”

Alaine sat thinking deeply. “I think I am almost forgetting to be a
Christian,” she said. “I am so weak, so wretched, so grief-worn, but if
it can ease a departing soul to grant his request, and he can be safely
taken, I shall not deny my consent. But do not let me see him yet.”

“That is the good child. I expected nothing less of you,” Madam told
her. “So then I think we shall trust him to Adriaen, whose heart is
so warm at thought of his marriage to Trynje that the whole world
he loves. Smiling and staring, he sits there by François just for
the sake of comradeship. They can go on ahead to Fort Orange, and
we will follow. From there it will not be much of a voyage down the
river to New Amsterdam.” The goede vrouw had arranged it all to her
satisfaction, and sat smiling over the plan.

“He is better. Better is François Dupont,” Trynje told Alaine. “Scarce
believe it would I, but he lies there and smiles and chatters at
Adriaen, who smiles at him, and sits and smokes and blinks and blushes,
though not a word he understands of what is said.” Trynje laughed.
“But good care he will have, and I shall let him go all the way to New
Amsterdam.” She spoke with a pretty air of proprietorship. Her little
heart had adjusted itself very readily and there was not any one now
like Adriaen. “And my mother will go,” Trynje added, “and my father.
They will take the time to buy my wedding finery, though it is little I
need, for long ago my chests were filled.”

One morning, therefore, Alaine bade good-by to the fort and the
blockhouse, to little Trynje and the flock of flaxen-haired children.
Mynheer van der Deen and his goede vrouw accompanied this party; the
first had gone on. Adriaen and his man Isaac took charge of François.
The young Dutchman’s face was wreathed in smiles. He gloated over his
charge as a mother over her baby. Trynje had given him this to do. Very
well, it became a pleasure, and he would do it as faithfully as he
could.

François gave a little weak laugh as he was deposited in the canoe
on a pile of skins. “My faith! but I never expected to travel again,
and here I am still following mademoiselle about. She has not a word
for me, and no wonder.” A shadow passed over his face, for the pains
spent upon him by Johanna van der Deen were not without result, and
in the weeks of suffering, in the long nights when she had watched by
his side, he had spoken to her as to a mother. He had lost much of his
arrogance, and acknowledged that he was a mere straw driven by the
wind, a leaf in a storm.

“You have dared to undertake to change the decrees of the Almighty,
little insignificant human creature that you are,” Madam van der Deen
had said to him. “You have thought your will stronger than that of God.
Wrapped in your own selfish desires you have forgotten that the cry of
the helpless is more powerful than the clash of a destroying sword in
the hands of man.”

“You have me here, and I cannot get away,” François had returned. “Say
on, mother. I will listen, for I cannot help myself. You are as good a
preacher as the old renegade priest.” He had learned of Father Bisset’s
change of belief and of his plan of escape, and he had laughed. His
respect for the wily Jacques Bisset increased as his anger against
the priest died away. “At least, then, we are quits,” he had said.
“I fooled him and he fooled me, so that is done with. Now I am here,
shattered and done for. Lendert Verplanck takes his way out of the
world by another road. There is then left the man Pierre Boutillier,
and he is no doubt as good as dead. All that the work of one girl.”

“The work of wicked men,” Madam van der Deen had replied, “of Louis
XIV. and François Dupont.”

At that François had laughed. “Thanks for coupling my name with his
majesty’s. He would feel flattered.”

But all this had been gone over days before, François reflected, as
he lay in the canoe floating down the river Hudson. A prisoner, with
a useless and suffering body, but with brain alive and strong enough
to guide his will. They did not want him. They would fain have thrown
him overboard. He would be received with aversion by Michelle; yet,
helpless as he was, he was having his way, and he could still smile
when he thought of that.

At Fort Orange they learned that Jacob Leisler had paid the penalty
of his mistaken and obdurate policy, and that by contemptible methods
his enemies had rid themselves of him. The new governor was in power
and the white people were again in the ascendant. Alaine, overcome
with grief, and full of longing to see her friends again, heard these
matters discussed, but heard indifferently. The time had passed when
they could interest her. She felt a dull sense of pleasure that the
first stage of the journey was over and that they would soon be nearing
New York. So far she had steadfastly avoided meeting François, but
soon it would be no longer possible, for they must travel in the same
conveyance from New York to the French settlement.

“It will have to be, my child,” said Madam van der Deen. “You cannot
avoid it, for he will be under the same roof.”

“So he has been these weeks past and I have not seen him. He must be
there, yes, while he lives, while he lives. Ah, that I might have been
spared this!”

“It is not so great a matter,” said the good lady, looking at her
serenely.

“He is Lendert’s murderer.”

“Oh, no, that he is not.”

“It was he who ordered them to take him. Shall I ever forget it? And
has he not made my life one of unutterable misery? Must I forgive him
all he has made me suffer during these years? Did I not have enough
to bear before that? Was it nothing that I must leave my home, be
separated from my only living parent, and come to a strange land, but I
must be weighted down by these heavier sorrows?”

“Seventy times seven,” returned her friend.

Alaine shook her head. “There are some things one can never forgive.”

“But he is penitent.”

“How do you know? He can appear to be anything. He is a vile
dissembler.”

“He has confessed to me that he is sorry for his misdeeds. He wishes to
tell you so, and there are other things he desires you to know.”

“I do not trust him. He would be as bad as ever if he were strong and
well.”

“That he will never be. Will you see him now?”

Alaine arose. They had lodged for the night in one of the ordinaries of
the town. They would soon be starting upon the second stage of their
journey.

The girl’s face was drawn and white as she followed Madam van der Deen
to another room. She trembled and was hot by turns. This meeting that
she had dreaded for weeks, that she had put off, and that Trynje had
helped her to defer, must now come about.

At Madam’s tap upon the door Adriaen opened it. The two women entered
and the door closed behind them. Where the light from a window fell
upon him François Dupont was propped up in his bed; he was waiting for
them. He was so thin that his eyes seemed too large and deep set for so
pale a face; his hands were like claws, and his lips were bloodless. At
sight of his utter helplessness Alaine felt her first wave of pity, but
she steeled herself against it.

He smiled as he saw her, and said, “At last, mademoiselle. I have long
wanted to see you, and the fault of our not meeting is not mine. Will
my good nurse give mademoiselle a chair?”

Adriaen understood, but Alaine refused to seat herself.

With a look at Adriaen, Madam retired and the young Dutchman followed.
Alaine, mute, troubled, a little pitiful for the invalid, wholly
resentful toward the man, stood there.

François regarded her for some moments in silence. “I have been the
cause of much suffering for you, mademoiselle,” he said at last, “and I
wish to tell you of my sorrow.”

“Sorrow comes too late, monsieur. In return I can only say that if I
despised you before, now that you are become the worst of creation, a
murderer, I can only look at you with horror and loathing.”

He winced but went on speaking. “Let us first talk of that morning
when I saw you last. The attack was not a personal matter. I was with
others who had long desired to make a raid into the English colony.
The opportunity came and we took it. I was chosen to lead the little
company of Frenchmen who were allies of the Indians. If the carrying
out of what seems one’s duty in serving one’s country is a crime,
then I am punished. None but myself can realize how great is this
punishment, this long death. I lie here paralyzed; only my head and my
hands are free to move. I do not say this to extort pity from you, but
to let you know that I have not come off better than my enemies. M.
Verplanck----”

“Hush!” Alaine raised her hand. There was agony in her eyes and in her
voice.

François turned his head away. “I did not understand,” he said, after
a pause. “I thought it was your sweet womanly pity which made you give
your body as a defence. I thought it was the other one,--that Pierre. I
cannot ask your forgiveness now, mademoiselle, for I understand. I must
tell you that I employed one who played the spy for me in those first
days of our acquaintance, and when you came so readily in answer to the
supposed word from Pierre, I believed he was the one you favored. I
thought it was but a friendship and a wish to oppose me that gave you a
kindly attitude toward any one else. I understand. Holy Mother! yes,
who better? I wish to tell you; it was Étienne, and I desired revenge.
I loved Constance De Caux in my student days there in France, but
Étienne she loved. He laughed when I said he had stolen her from me. He
said, ‘If you do not know how to keep her love, find out, but if you
expect me not to profit by your ignorance, you are a fool.’ And I vowed
I would win her or would have my revenge. She did not love me, although
I swear but for Étienne she would have done so, and she was all pity
for Étienne, who had lost his cousin Alaine. He came to me bowed down
with grief, and I pretended to give him my friendship again. But I had
not forgotten. No, I had not forgotten. Will you give me a drop of that
wine? I am very weak.”

Alaine handed him the cup but did not offer to help him to drink;
instead she turned away and stood looking out the window till he spoke
again, then she took the cup from him and placed it on the table.

He went on with his story. “Then I said, I will find her, this cousin,
and if I can bring her back to Étienne he will marry her, and after
a while Constance will remember how long I have loved her. I came.
I found Alaine, but she would not marry Étienne, I saw that, but I
did not tell him, for I had then another plan. He believed Alaine to
be dead, and then he married Constance, and broke her heart by his
indifference. I never told you all this, for I wished to marry you
myself, and returning, I thought to flaunt my wife in the face of him
who had vowed to win her, as I had vowed to win Constance. I knew
that your estates would return to you once you became my wife, and I
said I will have them and herself too; thus will I revenge myself upon
Étienne, who would fain have had both. He crossed me in my love, and I
will show him that I can do the same. A sweet revenge! A sweet revenge!
for Constance is dead and in heaven; she will know who it is that loves
her, and there she is mine and not his--not his. I would have won you
for my wife, and so he would have been left with neither one to bless
his days. Now it is all over and I have lost my last throw.”

He lay very still, his eyes closed, his breath coming quickly. It was
evident that the recital had cost him all the strength he could summon.
Alaine again took the cup of wine to him. “Will you drink?” she said.
“It has been an effort to tell me all this.”

He opened his eyes to smile at her. “Thank you. How kind you are! How
good and sweet you have always been! Even when you have flung your
defiance at me, it was always as a rebuking angel might speak. If I had
never loved Constance--Yet, I would have been kind to you. I would have
loved you as most men love, or even better. One does not love madly,
with the pain and the depth of a hundred loves all bound in one, one
does not love so but once. Never but once that comes, and to few.”

“I--know.” The words came painfully from Alaine’s lips. As she took the
cup away, François seized her hand and turned his face over upon it.
Alaine felt hot tears from the eyes pressing her palm.

“Don’t! Don’t!” she cried, drawing her hand away.

“At last I understand,” he repeated. “As I cannot forgive Étienne, so
you cannot forgive me. Let me tell you all. I lured you to the house in
the woods that first summer that we met. The men whom you believed to
be political spies were emissaries of a Jesuit who is yet working among
them there in Manhatte. He is not known as aught but a Protestant, and
I will not reveal his name, but it was through him that I was able to
carry out the plan which we meant should result in your being removed
from your home. The questions put to you were of no importance, and
were but to blind you to the real object. Again I wrote the letter from
Quebec, after I found you had escaped. I hoped that it might aid me
in preventing your marriage to another, and I hoped to discover your
hiding-place and to prevent any others from seeking you. How I have
planned and plotted and set spies upon you and dogged your actions! I
meant, if you should find your way back to your friends, to come to you
with a letter purporting to be from your father. I had meant to do even
that, to pretend that I had his consent to our marriage. I would have
done even that. I think I have told you all now. If I have robbed your
life of happiness, so you know I am not less miserable. I carry the
burden of love denied, of revenge untasted, of ambition thwarted, of a
miserable, helpless, suffering body. Mon Dieu! is it not enough? I ask
you, even you, Alaine Hervieu, whom I have wronged and have hurt as I
have hurt no other creature, is it not enough that with all this I must
yet live and face you, and see your misery and bear this gnawing misery
of knowing I have broken your heart, and that my own wretchedness is
scarcely greater?”

Alaine dropped on her knees by the bedside. “Lord be merciful to us!”
she cried. “Pray, François Dupont, pray!”

And François whispered, “Lord be merciful to us!”

Alaine buried her face in her hands. Sobs shook her slight frame.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
us.” She said the words brokenly.

François timidly reached out his hand and laid it on her head. His lips
moved, and when Alaine arose to her feet he looked at her with eyes so
full of entreaty that she bowed her head. “God forgive you, François
Dupont, and I pray that I may. I cannot yet,--I cannot,--but I pray
that I may yet be able to do so.”

And then Adriaen came in. “We must make ready to start,” he said.

Alaine turned to go. “Mademoiselle,” said François, “if I could fall
on my knees before you I would do it; as it is, my heart is bowed in
reverence for you. God knows it would be a small thing to die for you,
but I shall live, and perhaps by living a little longer I may yet do
something to undo my great wrong to you. If I might, if I might.”

When she had left the room François spoke to Adriaen. He had learned
enough Dutch in these weeks to carry on a halting conversation with
his self-instituted nurse. “Adriaen, my good fellow, I am as full of
whims as an egg is of meat. What would you say if I declared that I had
determined to go back to Canada? Helpless wretch that I am, there is
yet work for me to do and you must help me to do it. Will you?”

It took some moments for this to get through Adriaen’s brain, but
finally he nodded, “Yes.”

“I am a prisoner. I wish to be exchanged. I wish to remain here in
Orange. I shall not die yet. I am not worth one able-bodied man, but
there is enough of me, seeing my headpiece is still good, there is
enough to work an exchange. You will stay with me here?”

“That will I do.”

“Very well, then. I shall go back. One might suppose I enjoyed
travelling about the country in a canoe.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I
ought to die by the way, but I shall not, I say I shall not. Let me
remain here and see the big-wigs. Get that managed for me, and let us
remain. It is that much nearer your sweetheart, you see.”

Adriaen smiled broadly and regarded François with a puzzled look. This
sudden change of plans was bewildering, and he felt that he could not
adjust himself to it as rapidly as this keen young Frenchman.

“Will you ask Madam van der Deen and mademoiselle if they will permit
me to make my adieux to them? I would not force myself upon them again
to-day, but I may not live to see them again.” He spoke quietly of what
long since had become an accepted fact with him.

Adriaen withdrew and took the message to Madam van der Deen. “What
means this sudden change of plans?” she asked.

“That I know not.” Adriaen had not recovered from his surprise of it
himself.

“How can he wish to attempt it when he has been so eager to reach New
Rochelle? It passes my comprehension. I must consult my husband. The
man will die by the way,” Madam declared.

“Perhaps that is what he wishes,” thought Alaine.

The interview with François which Joachim van der Deen sought did not
alter the former’s decision. “He has a will of iron,” Joachim told his
wife. “He cannot be moved from his intention, and, helpless though he
is, one finds oneself agreeing with whatever he proposes. A pity so
able a man should be smitten down at this early age. He is our enemy
and could do us much harm, but one cannot remember that when one is in
his presence. He means to return to Canada, and when all is said that
is the sum of it.”

“Will you go in to see him?” Madam looked at Alaine, who followed
without a word.

“This is kind, madam,” was the greeting from François. “And you,
mademoiselle, I did not hope for this added grace from you. I am going.
I mean to do more before I die. If I can, I will do more. We shall
probably not meet again, and therefore I have asked to make my final
adieux. Words are poor things. I cannot thank you as I would for all
your motherly kindness to a wounded prisoner, Madam van der Deen, but
I shall remember it as one of the few pleasant things which have come
to me. Mademoiselle Hervieu, adieu. Will you come nearer?” She came to
his side. “You said pray, and I will pray to the blessed Virgin day and
night, to her and to all the saints, that you may have peace. If we do
not meet again, I shall have tried to make amends. Will you remember
that?”

She bowed her head in assent.

“Adieu, then.”

“Adieu, monsieur.”

They left him, so wreak in body, so strong of will, so wrong-headed,
so weary-hearted, with determination written in his deep-set eyes, and
even indicated by the nervous clasp of the wasted fingers. He turned
to Adriaen. “Now, then, we remain for a space, and the saints spare me
to do this thing which is not for revenge, nor for ambition, nor for
fame.”




CHAPTER XVIII

PAPA LOUIS TELLS A STORY


Everything was gay and smiling in and around the home of the Merciers
on that day when Alaine arrived. The door was open and there was the
sound of some one singing as Alaine used to sing. “How soon one is
forgotten!” she whispered to Madam van der Deen.

The goede vrouw shook her head. “That does not count. One sometimes
sings to cover up a heartache.”

But in this instance this was not so, for, as Alaine stopped before the
door and looked in, she saw a brisk little figure stepping back and
forth before the spinning-wheel. Her thread broke short with a snap as
she saw who was arrived. “Nomme de Dieu!” she cried, turning pale and
staring at Alaine as if she saw a ghost.

“Mathilde!” cried Alaine, holding out her hands. “Mathilde, and do you
not know me?”

Then with a scream Mathilde darted toward her, kissed her on each
cheek, pinched her, patted her, all the time exclaiming between tears
and laughter.

“Michelle, and Papa Louis, and Gerard, where are they?” at last Alaine,
recovering from the embraces, found voice to ask.

“I will call them. They do not know? Ciel! but this is a good day. I
will not stop to question, though I am dying to know how it is that
you come, and all of it.” She but stopped to drop a courtesy to the
friends, whom Alaine named, and was off.

Familiar, yet unfamiliar, the place looked to Alaine. The little table
still held the small black books; there was the big chair on its
rollers; yonder the high-post bedsteads, yet the dim blue hangings
had been exchanged for a soft yellow, with a delicate tracery of vine
bordering them, and they were further finished by a knitted fringe.
A coverlet of the same linen adorned the bed, and this, too, was
embroidered. Two painted feather fans ornamented the mantel, and a
hand-screen lay on the table near by. Throughout the room there was a
dainty feminine touch visible which had not been so observable before.
Alaine noticed, too, that one of the doors led to a room lately added.
This she must see. There stood another high bed and a dressing-table
decked with soft white draperies delicately embroidered.

She had not time to distinguish more, for a clatter of wooden shoes
along the porch and a sound of voices scolding, protesting, laughing,
proclaimed the coming of the Merciers. Michelle, in advance of the
others, stopped short at sight of strangers, of Madam van der Deen and
the sturdy Joachim; then she broke forth with a cry, “My child! My
child! is it of her you bring me news? My little lost lamb?”

Alaine, half hidden by the curtains of the bed, sprang out. “Not lost,
Michelle, dear Mère Michelle, but here, here! Look at me, see me, it is
your own Alainette!”

Michelle turned to her husband for support “What shall I do? What shall
I do? She has renounced her faith and her friends. She has become
French,” and Michelle dropped upon a bench and covered her face with
her hands.

Alaine knelt by her. “That she has not, Michelle. It was all a wicked
lie meant to deceive you. I am still Alaine Mercier, your daughter and
Papa Louis’s, if you will have it so. I have never returned to France.
I have never become the wife of any one. I have never renounced my
faith. Will you not welcome me again, Papa Louis and Gerard?”

For answer Papa Louis opened his arms, and Alaine went to him, resting
her head on his shoulder and holding out her hand to Gerard. “And you,
my brother?”

“Alaine, my sister.” He stooped and kissed her upon each cheek.

Then Michelle arose. “You claim her, all of you, when she was mine
first, mine. My little baby all those years ago when my own little one
died after they brought my young husband home to me, dead. My baby,
who comforted me and who crept into my desolate heart. My girl, whom I
cherished and cared for after her own sainted mother became an angel.
Mine, whom I have cared for and wept over and nursed and loved. Go,
all of you. Do not touch her, my little one, my baby, my heart. Come to
me, my Alainette. I was dazed. I was blind. I was stupefied. Come to
me, my baby, my daughter.”

Alaine’s arms went around Michelle’s neck. “God is good! God is good!”
Michelle murmured, the tears running down her cheeks.

Meantime, Papa Louis turned to Mynheer van der Deen and his wife. “You
will excuse this, my friends. We are overcome, and we forget to thank
you for bringing us our daughter.”

“I want to know how it happened,” said Mathilde.

Alaine disengaged herself from Michelle’s embrace. “It is a long, long
story. Can you hear it now? There are many things I, too, would know.”
She looked from one to the other, and saw on the faces of Mathilde
and Gerard a conscious smile. Then she understood. “You are married,
you two! That is why----” She looked around the room. These pretty
femininities were Mathilde’s work. She remembered how Mathilde had
excelled in the use of her brush and her needle. She ran up to her and
shook her playfully. “Tell me, is it true?”

“It is true,” laughed Mathilde. “It happened two weeks ago last Sunday
at the church in Manhatte. We were married there. Tell her, Gerard.”
She turned with a pretty bashful look at her young husband, who
regarded her small self with admiring eyes.

He in his turn said, “Let Papa Louis tell the story; he is the best
orator.”

“It was last winter that we first began to think of it; I should say
that it was then that Michelle and I did so, for no doubt but that it
had been interfering with the peace of these young persons long before
that,” Papa Louis began. “Michelle there fell sick of a rheumatic fever
and we all were in despair. The neighbors were kind, so very kind, but
kindest of all was our little Mathilde, who came and helped to nurse
her night and day. She did more than that, for she looked after the
house so deftly that our good Michelle herself said that she could have
done no better, and that Mathilde’s dainty touch was something that she
could never hope to attain. For myself, I did not contradict her; an
invalid must not be contradicted, you know.” His cheery laugh warmed
Alaine’s heart, it was so pleasantly familiar.

“So, then, when our maman became herself again she was still too
feeble to do all that she had heretofore, and while she was striving
for strength came the letter from François Dupont, which was like a
death-knell to our hope of seeing our daughter Alaine again, for not
a day but that we had prayed and longed for her return. So, then, we
said, she is lost to us forever. Then came the young Dutchman. Ah, said
I, when I told him the news, here is one whose grief is as great as
ours, and if it should be that Alaine returns, it is he who loves her
too well for us to deny her to him. By this time it had become very
plain to me where Gerard’s heart was placed, and I am a sentimental old
man, I love the poets, I love the songs of romance, I do not like to
break hearts, and here, I said, we shall make a mistake if we reserve
Gerard for one who will not return, and even, as I half expected, if
the news were false, even then, I thought, it will still be better, for
it is Mathilde whom Gerard loves. Do not blush so, little bride, it is
quite true. I said that, and I saw---- No, no, you are safely married;
there is no harm in telling that I perceived that you loved him. It
is quite natural, I said, for he is tall and she is so little; it is
always that way. Observe my inches and then gaze upon my wife.” Every
one laughed. There was never any resisting Papa Louis’s pleasantries.

“Now I come to the finale. By this time we were agreed that a daughter
was an indispensable luxury. Since we cannot have Alaine, I say, why
not Mathilde? ‘Why not, indeed,’ agreed Michelle, as if she had just
thought of it, although I know the idea had kept her awake nights.”

“Ta, ta, Louis,” broke in Michelle, “that is not so. Mathilde’s
nightcaps were always of a sort to make one sleep. To be sure, I
thought of it--in the daytime.”

Papa Louis laughed. “Very well, then, we proceed. I approach Gerard
with caution. I say, ‘My son, it would be well if you should marry. We
suddenly seem old, my wife and I; we need younger hands, and yours,
big as they are, cannot do everything.’ ‘Who, then, would you have me
marry?’ asked Gerard, all expectant eyes and ears. I consider a moment.
‘How would Madelaine Theroulde please you?’ I say. He turned pale.
You did, Gerard, though you shake your head. ‘She is a good girl,’ he
said, ‘certainly, but----’ ‘Ah,’ I remark, ‘you say “but.” Then let us
pass on. I think Michelle and I might be satisfied with some one else.
What do you say to Adrienne Selaine?’ And then Gerard had no smile nor
even a word for a moment or two. At last he blurted out, ‘And why not
Mathilde Duval?’ I laughed then. I had a good laugh. ‘I have amused
myself,’ I cried. ‘I desired to break it gently to you lest you faint,
and I am not strong enough, Gerard, to carry you in, so I approached
the subject with care. It was Mathilde whom, all the time, I meant.’
And, will you believe it? the undutiful son then and there fell upon me
and pounded me, then he embraced me in so bearlike a manner that I have
scarce since been able to breathe as freely as before, and the only
way I could recover myself from his embrace of me was to gasp, ‘But
Mathilde, Mathilde, we may not be able to receive the consent of her
guardian.’ And then he dropped me and stood off staring at me. Do not
laugh, Mathilde. I should not perhaps tell all this, for it is not best
always to let a woman know her power. I never confess to Michelle how I
tremble in her presence.”

Michelle shook her head at him. “We desire facts, Louis, and not
fancies.”

He nodded at his audience as he would say, You see how I am ruled.
“So, then,” he resumed, “we digress. He looked crestfallen. I assure
him that I will at once proceed to the uncle of Mathilde. I go. I
return shortly. I do not seem to see that Gerard has done much work in
my absence, for he sits stupidly by the door listening to Mathilde’s
singing.” Papa Louis put his head back and laughed again.

“I say as I enter, ‘Will you go to the garden, Gerard, and see how many
chickens the yellow hen has hatched? Michelle wishes to know.’ ‘But M.
Theroulde?’ says Gerard. ‘I have no message for you from M. Theroulde,’
I say, looking severe, ‘but I have one for Mathilde.’ He goes forth
slowly as if his shoes were of iron instead of wood, and I enter the
house. ‘Mathilde,’ I say, ‘Gerard has gone to count the yellow hen’s
chickens. Will you go to him and tell him that when he has concluded
the sum of them that I am waiting here with Michelle to bestow a
blessing?’ Mathilde looked puzzled. ‘On the chickens?’ she asked. Ho!
ho! she said that. ‘Not on the chickens, but on two geese,’ I reply.
She ran out. I do not know yet if she understood, but one thing I do
know: to this day I have not been told the number of the yellow hen
chickens.”

“There were eleven,” said Michelle, gravely. And every one else burst
into a hearty laugh.

“That is all my part of the story,” Papa Louis concluded. “Of the
rest it better befits Michelle and Mathilde to tell. We are very well
pleased, are we not, Mathilde?” He pinched her cheek and looked around
with a smile for every one.

And then Michelle, arising to her duty as hostess, set out to prepare a
feast for the visitors, while Alaine gave a recital of her experiences.
That the dinner was not late was not due to the frequent interruptions
caused by Michelle’s dropping suddenly in a chair to raise her eyes to
heaven and to exclaim at the wickedness of man.

It was after the meal was over and the guests departed that Alaine,
looking at Mathilde, said, “And Pierre?”

“He has not sent a word nor a line. We fear he is no more.”

Alaine sighed. Of her lovers, who were left? François, a wreck, a man
whose days were numbered. Étienne, who had married another, and who had
never been a possibility in Alaine’s opinion. The two who had loved her
best, who of all had received affection from her, these were gone. She
leaned back in her chair and slow tears rolled down her cheeks.

Mathilde came and stood over her. “So pale and wistful you look, dear
Alaine, and I am too happy to be here before you. What can I do not to
have it seem so great a contrast for you, my sister Alaine? For you are
my sister.”

“And I never had one,” sighed Alaine.

“Think, then, now I have father, mother, sister, and brother, I who
lately had no one. Think of that, Alaine. I, too, a year ago was
desolate, and now how happy I am! If I needed anything to complete my
joy, it was your return, and to-day brings me that. I can almost say
I love France, I am so at peace. Do you know, my uncle will not speak
French save at home, and he calls his children by the English names
John and Margaret and James. He says he is not French, that this is
his country and he owes it his allegiance, and so say I. Let us forget
France, I tell Gerard. We have had merry times here together, and still
shall have. Now that you return there will be occasion for many a
frolic. I shall take you to a little festivity to-morrow, the fête-day
of Suzanne Gombeau. We shall dance and sing, and you will be at home
again among your friends.”

“Dance? I dance?” Alaine shook her head. “My heart is too heavy for me
to be light-footed. I will stay at home, Mathilde.”

“We will see what Mère Michelle will say to that. She is so glad to-day
she could dance herself, I think.”

Michelle stood gazing at her darling. “I cannot yet believe it,” she
told her, “and I would hear more of those strange journeys of yours, of
Father Bisset and Madame Herault. Well do I remember her, a handsome
young woman so blithe and so brilliant.” She shook her head. Alaine’s
tale of Jeanne had greatly moved her. “And you knew not what became of
her? That is strange,” she remarked at the close of Alaine’s tale of
Jeanne’s disappearance.

“We do not know whether she was taken away by force or whether she went
willingly. I hope the latter.” This had been the one thought which had
given Alaine comfort. If Jeanne had accompanied the raiders on their
retreat she might be able to lend some protection to Lendert, she and
Ricard. The Indians, however, might have become enraged at what they
felt to be treachery on Jeanne’s part and she, too, might be prisoner.

To Alaine it seemed years ago that all those strange things had
happened. In a year she had travelled far, had suffered the sorrows of
a lifetime, yet here she was again in this quiet corner of the world.
The twittering birds, the soft tinkling of some musical instrument,
treasured by a neighbor and brought over from France with great care,
the old familiar sounds came in through the open window. Here was rest
for brain and body, for all but her aching heart. And strange, in the
midst of her prayers that night arose a thought of François. “Lord have
mercy,” she again faltered.

And François? Only his iron will took him safely through the fatigues
of the next few days. After a night’s rest he had demanded that Adriaen
should see certain officials for him. “I will receive them here,” he
said. “You will explain why I do not present myself in person.”

His message was received courteously, and following Adriaen’s account
of him came a visit from two of the dignitaries of the place. The
courage with which François faced them, his Spartan-like endurance, and
his compelling presence won their attention and they found themselves
interested, so that before they left they had promised to make
immediate efforts to arrange for an exchange.

Then François dismissed Adriaen. “Go to your sweetheart,” he said. “I
will get you to hire me a man, and then I will do.” He took the young
man’s hand in his. “You have been a good friend, Adriaen, and I wish
you all the happiness that I have missed. Tell your little Trynje that
I thank her for lending you to me. I should not have been able to get
through without you. And say to her that for what I have made her
friend suffer I have no words in which to ask forgiveness. I remember
now; the old priest said it: ‘Forgiveness is sweeter than revenge.’ I
have come to see it. It was Alaine herself who showed me that. Now get
me a good man, and then adieu, Adriaen.”

There were real tears in the young Dutchman’s eyes when he finally took
his leave of his friend, and after he had gone François, with a deep
sigh, shut his eyes. Then he set his mind upon what was to be done next.

What it was transpired not long after. For in exchange for a wounded
Englishman François’s paralyzed body was sent on to Montreal. Here he
was not long in setting his friends about his business. “I want to
find,” he said, “a coureur de bois called Ricard le Nez. If he cannot
be found, then one Edouard le Gros will do.”

And in due time it came to pass that Jeanne Crepin in her lodge in the
wilderness saw borne past her door on a rude stretcher the body of a
man. “Hold, Ricard!” she cried; “whom have you there?”

The bearers stopped. “A man who is all head and no body,” Ricard
replied.

“I will see him.” She came and stood over the man. “Who are you? What
do you here?” she asked.

“One question at a time, good sir or madam, I know not which,” replied
François. “I am François Dupont, or what is left of that once lively
individual.”

“Then you are a child of the Evil One,” returned Jeanne.

“Softly, softly, my good sir or madam. May I ask your name in return
and how it is that you are so well acquainted with the family of
Monsieur le Diable? since the putting of double questions seems to be
the fashion in these parts.”

“I am Jeanne Crepin.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure.” He spoke as if searching his memory for a lost
recollection. “I remember, I remember. Your brother was a friend of
mine. Father Bisset has perhaps mentioned me to you. No, I have it, I
have it. I recognize you now, madam; it was you whom I saw during our
little skirmish over in the English colony of New York, as they call it
now. I remember. So, so.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? It is not I who can do at all; you perceive that
I am a passive fact. I think, however, that it would be as well if we
were to get on. I would doff my hat to you, madam, did I wear one. As
it is, take my adieux in such courteous manner as may be best suited to
the occasion, and consider that I have made my best obeisance. Advance,
Ricard.”

Jeanne took up the line of march with the others. “Where do you carry
him?” she asked.

“To the Indian village beyond.”

“Why does he go there?”

Ricard looked at her with a sidelong glance. “You would have to know
him to guess why. I never knew stronger will in weaker body. How he has
made this journey is past telling. He goes because he has heard that
the young Dutchman is there.”

“Ah-h!” Jeanne compressed her lips and walked on in silence. From time
to time she looked at François, whose eyes returned her glance with
something of their old mischief.

“I see, madam,” he said at last, “twenty questions have risen to your
lips, yet none are uttered. You say, Why does he go to the Indian
village? What does he intend to do if he discovers Lendert Verplanck
there? How much does he know? How little does he know? What is to be
done after all? and all that. Am I right?”

“You are right,” she returned, gravely.

“Then I will answer without further prelude. I go to the Indian village
because there I have heard I will find Lendert Verplanck. I wish to see
him, and if possible to set him free. And then I have really nothing
more to do in this life. Love will do the rest.” He searched Jeanne’s
face, over which a sudden softness spread.

“Ay,” she said, “love will do the rest, if love meets life.”

“Explain yourself, if you please.”

“Lendert Verplanck has been kept alive from day to day only on
sufferance. At first they would have despatched him by slow torture
without hesitation, but some interfered, Ricard and some others, and
the Indians agreed to wait till they should reach the village. Arriving
there, he was made to run the gauntlet, to believe that each day must
be his last, and that the morrow would see the fires of torture kindled
for him. But Petit Marc sits there watching. He declares that once
they glut themselves with the Dutchman’s death, he, Petit Marc, has
knowledge which will bring them terrible disaster.”

“This is interesting. Then why do they not despatch Monsieur Marc
first? That would be my plan.”

Jeanne smiled a little ironically. “They know better, for Petit Marc
has conveyed away one of them whom he holds as a hostage. They know
that at a word from this big man----”

“Whom you call little----”

“That one of their braves will suffer as they would make the man
Verplanck suffer. He knows them, this Marc. He knows their ways, their
secrets. He has done them too many favors for them to regard him
lightly. He sits there a guard over their prisoner, yet they will not
give up the Dutchman.”

“They will, then,” said François. “Proceed a little more rapidly,
Ricard.”




CHAPTER XIX

THE MARK OF THE RED FEATHER


Into the company of Indians gathered around the imperturbable Marc and
the prisoner suddenly walked Jeanne Crepin, whose coming was received
with grunts of disapproval. She had an unpleasant way of appearing
before these red brethren when she was least expected. They gave her a
certain respect and even affectionate admiration, but they were not to
be balked by a woman in their revenge. Lendert’s scalp was a possession
not to be despised, and it had required the combined strategy of Jeanne
and Ricard to prevent its being taken on that homeward march. Jeanne
had insisted that he was Ricard’s prisoner and had refused to leave him
while Ricard made a hasty journey in search of Petit Marc. After that
Petit Marc took possession.

“You quarrel over the man,” he said to them. “One brother says he is
mine, another he is mine. I am judge between you. He is neither the
one’s nor the other’s. Ricard took him, as every one knows, but it was
because the Frenchman, your leader, told him to do it, and therefore
if he belongs to any one it is to François, but he does not belong to
him. He belongs to Yonondio, and to him he must be delivered at last.
If the Frenchman, François Sharp Eyes, were here he would tell you so,
but he is slain and he cannot deliver him up to Yonondio. Will Yonondio
protect you? Will he believe you to be his friends when you steal from
him his prisoners? Yet Yonondio loves François Sharp Eyes, and he would
give him to him because he is his.”

“The Frenchman, Sharp Eyes, is slain,” said an old chief. “What is my
brother saying? How does he expect that the slain shall come and claim
his prisoner?”

“François Sharp Eyes is not slain,” returned Marc, racking his brain
for a device to lengthen the time for Lendert. “Moreover, my brothers
forget that there are many who have lost friends in this war, and even
in this battle, therefore it is but right and according to custom that
this prisoner shall be delivered to one who has lost a friend in war.
So only can the cloud be driven away which hangs over that one to whom
grief has come.”

“My brother speaks what is true,” agreed the old chief, “and the
prisoner must be given to one who has lost a friend in this battle.”

Then came a long discussion as to who should possess Lendert, and
finally this matter was settled by his being handed over to one Red
Feather. Petit Marc protested all the while that it was no one’s right
to kill the man, and that the governor, Frontenac, whom the Indians
called Yonondio, would tell their father, the King of France, and that
he would be very angry that they had kept any prisoner from him.
Nevertheless, every now and then murmurs arose, and the life of Lendert
hung in the balance whenever news of a raid from the Iroquois aroused a
new desire for revenge in Lendert’s captors.

At last came the word that a bloody skirmish had taken place and that
here was new cause for maltreatment of this representative of the
enemy. Encouraged by Petit Marc, Lendert bore himself stoically while
the wily Marc cast about for a reason to delay the expected torture.
Bound to a tree and hopelessly waiting the pleasure of his tormentors,
Lendert lay when Jeanne appeared.

“To whom do you say this man belongs?” she asked, at the same time
touching him contemptuously with the toe of her moccasin. “You say he
is Red Feather’s. I say he is not. I say that no one but François Sharp
Eyes has a right to him.”

“Wah!” grunted the old chief, “the Man-Wife has been drinking the new
sap of the fever-tree and it has touched her brain. Do dead bodies
desire to take away prisoners from the living?”

Jeanne tossed up her chin. “No, but the living have a right to their
own. See, my brothers, François Sharp Eyes is here.” With a wave of her
hand she indicated the approach of Ricard and Edouard with their burden.

“And not a minute too soon,” growled Petit Marc. “It was getting to be
close quarters for him.”

Even the most impassive of the redskins stared to see the white face
of François appear. Lendert struggled in his bonds and glared at this
unexpected presence.

“Where is the prisoner?” asked François. “Place me near him.” He was
laid under the tree where Lendert was bound.

“You see me, my brothers,” François began. “You ask if a dead body
desires to take possession of a living one. Behold a dead body, this
one of mine. As the chill of winter creeps farther and farther from the
north, so over this body of mine creeps the chill of death; and who has
caused this to happen? The same enemy who has robbed Red Feather of
his son. Am I not worse off than Red Feather? He has another son, two
or three of them. I have but my one body and it is worse than useless;
only a frame to fasten this head upon. Was it not I who led you against
the English? Said I not, We will have revenge for those indignities
of the English and the Dutch and the Iroquois? You have come home in
safety; I have been all these months a prisoner; and look at me. Who
shall say that I should not have body for body?”

The Indians listened solemnly. Then one spoke up. “Our brother speaks
well, but he has still his head. We will give him the body of the white
man and we will take the head.”

This was received with much approval by the rest of the Indians, and
Petit Marc gave a short laugh. The grim humor of the speech struck him.
“They have you there,” he said aside to François.

“Pah!” François raised his hand. “Of what use is a body which cannot
move? And if you deprive me of the head, how, then, can the body move
for me? My living body has been taken; for it I demand a living body in
return. This is what Yonondio would accord me. Call the head yours if
you wish. I am willing, but how will it serve me to have two useless
bodies? My brothers mock me; they wish to double my burdens by giving
me two loads to carry, as if one were not enough. Who will be feet for
my feet, legs for my legs? Who will run for me if I have not these
living legs to do my will? And what will Yonondio say when I tell him.
They have given me a dead man to bring to you as a prisoner?”

This was another matter for consideration, but the decision was not
repealed. “The head is Red Feather’s, the body belongs to François
Sharp Eyes. If François takes away the head which is Red Feather’s,
how, then, will any one know that it belongs to his brother?”

It was François who solved the difficulty. “It will not be so bad as it
might be, and it is that or his head,” he said in an undertone to Petit
Marc. “François Sharp Eyes, your brother, will tell you what to do,”
he went on to say. “Let Red Feather put his mark upon the man; let him
brand him upon the cheek, so will all know that it is the head of Red
Feather though the body follow François.”

The old chief nodded approval. “Our brother speaks with wisdom; it
shall be as he desires. Yonondio will then perceive that we have done
as he would command, and it will be a sign to him that the man was in
our hands but that we desire to please our father, and that we have
delivered the prisoner to François.”

Finding that they were not to be deprived of all entertainment, the
company proceeded, with much ceremony, to see to it that upon Lendert’s
cheek was branded a queer, small red feather. Then followed a feast and
much powwowing, and at last Lendert was free.

As he faced his old enemy he felt that he would almost rather have
suffered greater torture than to be handed over to this man. What
further diabolical intention had he, who was mighty even in his
helplessness? He had not opened his lips during all this ceremony,
not even to ask word of his friends, of Alaine, whom Jeanne had left
lying on the ground in feigned mortal hurt. Nor did he speak when his
stiffened and cramped limbs followed the litter to Jeanne’s lodge.
Jeanne tramped along by his side, but turned her talk to Petit Marc,
for she saw that Lendert was in no mood for conversation. It was only
when they were arrived at her door that she turned to François and
said, “And Alaine, what of her?”

“To-day she is with her friends,” François told her. “She is in New
Rochelle, poor little soul.” He turned his eyes upon Lendert. “Come
here, if you please, my friend. I have done you and Mademoiselle
Hervieu much wrong. I do not know why I disliked you; probably because
you are Dutch and the enemy of my country, and because you came between
me and my revenge. She will tell you all, for I send you to her. I am
not going to live, and I made this journey to attain this object, to
find you. I send you back to her you love and to her I have wronged. I
believe she will forgive me. I know what a great love is, and I respect
yours. Go with it to Mademoiselle Hervieu and say, I am François
Dupont’s gift to you. I love you so deeply that I can even endure it
that he whom I hate has been the means of liberating me and that it is
from his hands that you receive me back to your heart. I do not ask
your forgiveness, Lendert Verplanck; only angels can forgive utterly,
and it is an angel who waits for you there in New Rochelle.”

“I thank you, mynheer,” said Lendert, brokenly. “God knows I love her.”

“And you will marry her. Yes, I know. I have heard it all from the lips
of that little Trynje and from her good mother and her better lover.”
His eyes softened as he spoke of Adriaen. “Good boy! good boy! I love
that lad,” he said, thoughtfully. “I know your mother’s feeling, but
you will say to her that the man who gave up his revenge and his will
that he might go out of the world worthy of one who waits for him up
there----” He gave a quick, short sigh. “I believe that! I believe
that!” he said, passionately. “She waits for _me_. Well, then, say to
your mother this man, half dead, took his poor body over hill and dale,
through forest and down-stream, that he might right a wrong, and he
gives you back your son, but in return he asks that you do not stand
between him and happiness. This man, François Dupont, you will tell
her what became of his strong will, and how Heaven treated him for his
vainglory and stubbornness. I am not good; I am not religious, not I,
but I know when I am beaten, and I can recognize the stroke when it
comes. I am so near death that I can see the meaning of things. You
will tell her of me and of what I say. Yet, because even then, in her
strength and her power of health, she still refuses, there is something
else. It will be told you in good time. Now, boys, we rest here for
to-night, and to-morrow take me on to Quebec. I wish to die under the
flag which waved above me when I fought there upon the heights of
Quebec. I shall live to get there,--I shall do that. You will take me,
Ricard, and you, Edouard, and Toito, my man? So now, you, M. Verplanck,
must have safe escort to the other side of the river, and then you can
go on.”

Lendert bowed his head in assent. He had not even words now for this
strange man, whose devotion to a purpose rose above his egotism and
ambitions. But the young Dutchman carried all this in his heart, and
when the next morning he saw François placed in the canoe which was
to bear him upon his last journey before he should enter that darker
river, the feeling of angry resentment, of hatred and revenge, gave
way. It had been slowly growing less and less ever since the hour when
he was freed, and he leaned over from the side of his own canoe to
touch the hand of François, not now in anger nor in assault, but in
pity and gratitude.

“Mynheer Dupont,” he said, “you told me that Mademoiselle Hervieu would
forgive you, that it was an angel I should find when I return. Then,
I cannot go to her with a black heart, and if I am your gift to her,
one does not give angels as worthless a thing as a man who hates his
deliverer. And so, mynheer, if you wish my forgiveness, here it is,
and if you have aught against me, I pray you, in turn, let me ask your
pardon for it.”

François turned his feverishly bright eyes upon him. “Head of Red
Feather and body that is mine,” he said, with a whimsical smile, “you
are of no account at all beside the heart which is Alaine Hervieu’s,
and which is great enough to do this. Will you bend your head closer,
monsieur?”

Lendert obeyed, and François touched his lips to the burning mark,
which stood out red and inflamed, even though Jeanne’s soothing
applications had taken away the worst of its fire. “When you go to
Alaine, tell her so I have dedicated this mark and bear her my long
farewell.”

The canoes drifted apart, one going up stream, the other down, and to
those who had best known him, who had suffered with and by him, whose
fear had been turned into compassion, François Dupont became but a
memory, yet from the memory at last all bitterness vanished, and he was
remembered as one to whom reverence and gratitude were due.

The long and wearisome journey made by Lendert at last brought him
to the house from which he had lately been cast out. But here was no
mother to welcome him or to upbraid him, for Madam De Vries had gone to
New York after Trynje’s wedding. She felt a miserable satisfaction in
nursing her resentment towards Alaine, yet was of a dozen minds about
her. Trynje was no longer to be treated as a daughter, and the one whom
her son had loved ought rightly to have taken her place. This Madam
conceded to herself, but grew hot and angry at the thought, and so at
last she shut herself away from her friends and brooded over it all.
As day after day passed and the hopelessness of ever seeing Lendert
again came over her, she grew more and more bitter, outwardly, and more
and more yielding, inwardly, so that if, at certain moments, Alaine
had appeared, she would have wept with her and have taken her to her
heart. A dozen times she started to make the journey to New Rochelle,
where she knew Alaine to be, and as often she fell back in her chair,
a slave to her obstinacy and self-pity.

It was one morning, six months after the events of the day, which it
seemed to Madam De Vries must always pass in procession before her upon
her first waking, that she suddenly decided to return to her home. “I
cannot escape it wherever I go,” she moaned; “I am idle here, and I
brood too much. I will go to work. I will change everything; I will
busy myself doing that. I will have nothing as it used to be, and so in
time I may be able to live in a measure contented.”

And thus it happened that the canoe bearing Lendert to New York passed
the spot where his mother was resting overnight upon her homeward
journey.

While Lendert was proceeding on his way some one else was nearing New
York with hope and longing. M. Theodore Hervieu, late engagé upon the
island of Dominica, was free at last and was now in possession of the
knowledge of his daughter’s whereabouts. These facts had come to him
in that peculiar way which gives credence to the saying that truth is
stranger than fiction. He had not fared badly, when all is told, for
he was fortunate in falling into the hands of a compassionate master,
who gave him such liberty as was his due and set him about tasks which
were not heavy. It was, however, not upon the island of Guadaloupa, but
upon St. Domingo, that he was landed, and having been shipped under a
name differing somewhat from his own, he was not discovered by those
who had gone in search of him, remaining himself all the while ignorant
of what had become of his daughter. Letters sent to France assured
him that she had fled the country; letters sent to England remained
unanswered, therefore in patience possessing his soul M. Hervieu waited
till an event occurred which turned the tide of his affairs.

One morning from a high rock upon the coast of Guadaloupa there might
have been seen dangling a rope, and from it swung a man, looking below
him to make sure of how far he might drop if he let go. Presently the
rope swung free of its burden, and the man, limping a little, ran along
the shore and was not long in reaching a small boat, which immediately
set out for the neighboring island of Dominica. After six months of
miserable bondage Pierre Boutillier had a second time escaped, and as
fate would have it, he found himself received upon the plantation of
one Madame Valleau, and was taken into that lady’s presence by her
secretary, whom she addressed as M. Hervet.

The pitiful condition of the escaped man excited Madame’s pity as she
directed that he be given the best that the place could afford, and
herself invited him to be her guest at dinner.

Madame Valleau had been a widow a little over two years. She was young
and bewitching, and having married an elderly man who seemed more like
a father than a husband to her, she was ready to fall in love when the
proper person should present himself, and this happened to be Pierre
Boutillier, for, as did Desdemona, “she loved him for the dangers he
had passed,” and found in him a hero whom fate had cast at her feet.

Pierre had not been under her roof a week when she began to reproach
him for his melancholy. “Thy grave and sombre face needs a different
medicine to alter its expression from that I have to offer,” she said
one day. “M. Hervet, there, for all he has a missing daughter somewhere
in the world, does not look so melancholy. Who is it you have left
behind?” She gave a coquettish glance at the unresponsive Pierre, who
shook his head.

“No kin of mine waits for me anywhere, for all perished under the hand
of persecution in France.”

Madame Felice Valleau tapped her foot reflectively. “And that is why
you do not approve of me, I suppose. I am not Protestant.”

“I never said, madame, that I did not approve of you. Who am I that
I should abuse your bounty by vilifying you? Yet, I would you were
Protestant.”

“And suppose I were, then would I see you smile?”

“Without doubt I should smile that Providence had brought me into such
a favorable haven of refuge.”

“Then turn your head this way. I am Protestant and M. Hervet knows it.
It was not my husband’s belief, but he did not cross me in it, and he
was always kind to those of my faith. It was his way to say that each
man was accountable to his own conscience for his faith, and he had no
right to persecute others for thinking the same. He took M. Hervet into
his employ, knowing him to be a Huguenot, but seeing him a gentleman
and a good man of business. He finally made him his secretary, in which
office in this house he still continues, though he is still an engagé,
and it will be some time before he can have his freedom. I think he
will likely wish to remain here if he can realize something from the
estates he left in France. There is a secret about that too, which I
will tell you some day. There are not bad opportunities in this place
for one who has M. Hervet’s ability, and I think he will do well to
remain. But now let us return to our former subject. I see no reason
for your melancholy, for I assure you that I shall treat you well.”

“I do not doubt it, madame, and as for my grave manner, one who has
suffered much cannot at once assume the gayety of those always free
from care.”

The tears came to the eyes of Madame Valleau. “It shall be my dearest
privilege to drive that gloom away from one who has borne so much for
the sake of my religion. Tell me again of that wild escape of yours.
And why did you return when once you had freed yourself? I can never
wring from you why you did that. Can you not tell me?” She looked at
him with melting dark eyes and laid her soft warm hand upon his arm.
“Tell me,” she said in a beseeching voice.

Pierre hesitated. He felt the woman’s witchery, and told himself that
there was not any reason why he should not confess that his was a
mission of love, a sacrifice because of his devotion to Alaine. Yet he
hesitated. After a pause, in which the silken garments of the pretty
widow swept his feet and the entreaty in her eyes deepened, he said,
slowly, “I returned that I might seek and liberate some one who, like
myself, had been sent into slavery.”

“He must have been very dear to you.”

“I never saw him.”

“What!” Felice Valleau leaned nearer. “Then it was for a woman you did
it. Who is she? Tell me. Who is she?”

“Her name is Alaine Hervieu,” Pierre answered in response to an
irresistible impulse.

“Alaine Hervieu!” Felice screamed. Then a little light laugh rippled
from her red lips. “Very well, then, you have come to the right place.
I can find him for you. But first---- No, no,” as Pierre’s eager
questions leaped to his lips. “No, not yet. Do you love this Alaine
Hervieu madly? Would life be a blank without her?”

Pierre was silent.

“Does she love you?”

“I do not know. I did not demand that she should tell me. She made
no promise. I would not allow that, but it was that if her father
desired, she would marry me when I returned with him.”

Madame laughed again, and then leaned forward, her chin resting in one
dainty palm, her soft round arm almost touching Pierre as he sat by her
side. After a silence she looked at him with alluring, velvety eyes.
“She does not love you. No, she does not. She would never have allowed
you to leave her if she had. She would have flung herself into your
arms and have implored you to stay. No, no.”

“She did beg me not.”

“But she did not do so with tears and sighs and kisses, with her heart
in her eyes. She thought of her father first.”

“Ye-es.” The answer came reluctantly.

“Then, I repeat, she does not love you as you loved her. Why must you
love her, Monsieur Pierre? By this time she has forgotten you.”

“No; she will wait till the year is out.”

“And will then marry some one else?”

“Perhaps.”

“And when is the year up?”

“In three months.”

“Then, in that time she shall see her father, if--if---- Listen,
monsieur. If I let him go I shall demand the sacrifice you were willing
to make. You were willing to give yourself for him. Then I shall demand
the exchange. You will do this willingly?”

“Give myself to you?”

“Yes.” Felice arose. She looked down at him with a soft luminous
expression. “Pierre, would it be such a sorry lot to remain with me?
Could I not make you happy? This girl does not love you. I repeat it.
In your heart you do not feel that she does, and will you force her to
marry you because her father may demand it?”

“A thousand times no.”

“And if, after you had gone back, you were to find that she loved some
one else would it not be harder then to give her up, who now is but a
dream?”

“It would be harder.”

“Then---- You are very humble, too humble, Pierre Boutillier; many men
have sued on their knees for what is yours on your own conditions. I
give you M. Theodore Hervieu, my secretary, and you give yourself to
me.”

“M. Hervet?”

“The same.”

Pierre too had arisen and was looking down at the graceful figure clad
in its filmy silken robes. “And if I do not,” he said, hesitatingly,
and pressing his hand over his eyes.

“Then I refuse to give up my slave, the man Thomas Hervet.” She drew
herself away a few steps. “You are very hard, very unresponsive, very
ungrateful, Pierre Boutillier. I do not wonder that Alaine did not love
you.”

Pierre removed his hand from his eyes. He saw that there were tears
standing in the soft eyes and that the bewitching red lips were
quivering like a hurt child’s. He made a step forward. “Madame,” he
hastened to say, “I accept. I offer you this poor, heavy-eyed, ungainly
Pierre Boutillier in exchange for Theodore Hervieu. I am yours, madame,
do as you will with me.” He knelt at her feet.

Felice bent over and kissed him gently on the head. “I would make you
my slave,” she said, softly. “And as for myself, take my hands; they
are your willing servitors: take my heart; it is in chains that you
have forged.”

And so it happened that Pierre Boutillier became the head of a large
estate, and the husband of the pretty widow of Eugene Valleau.

M. Hervieu’s surprise came not in the news of the approaching marriage,
but in the stranger fact that here was one who knew his daughter and
who had come in search of him. “But I am still an engagé,” he said,
“and I have no money for my passage to Manhatte.”

“You are not an engagé, and you are not penniless,” Felice told him.
“M. Valleau believed that it would be better for you to serve out your
time here, thinking it would not be altogether disagreeable to you.”

“It has been far otherwise. Your kindness and that of M. Valleau give
me no unhappy recollection of my bondage,” he answered.

“Before my husband died,” Madame Valleau told him, “he gave me this,”
she handed him a paper, “and told me that if ever you should wish to
leave me, and it seemed advisable that you should do so, that you were
to receive from my hands the amount brought by the sale of certain
estates of yours in France, put up for sale and purchased by him for
you. By his will he leaves that to you. ‘It is not a great gift,’ he
said, ‘but it will start our friend again in some good enterprise when
he is ready to take his place with his friends in another country. He
has served me well for no wages, and I am doing only what is just in
requiting for his services.’”

“Madame!” M. Hervieu was overcome, and could only murmur some
unintelligible words of thanks.

“Therefore,” continued Felice, “if you will kindly remain with me until
I am married, I will wish you God-speed. And will you please ask your
daughter to write to me and send it by a safe hand, and will you give
her this little packet?”

M. Hervieu promised, and two weeks later he left the island of St.
Domingo, and set sail for the colony of New Netherlands, then beginning
to be known as New York.

“This is a better voyage than the last I made,” he said to the captain
of the ship in which he had taken passage; “in that I, with fifty
others, was wedged into a space scarce big enough for a breath.”

The good Dutchman looked his sympathy; he had taken on this passenger
who was willing to pay his way, and the thrifty man did not despise
the money, though his was but a small merchantman. He was making the
return trip to New York and had seen something of the life of the
engagé. “You vas locky to get owet alretty,” he remarked.

M. Hervieu drew a long, free breath. It was good to take in the air of
absolute liberty once more.

“Vat you vas calt?” asked the skipper. He must converse in English with
this passenger who knew only a little of that language and French.

“I am called Theodore Hervieu now,” was the reply.

The skipper took the pipe from his mouth and stared at his companion.
“Py tam!” he exclaimed. And then he lapsed into a silence from which no
remark of M. Hervieu aroused him for half an hour.




CHAPTER XX

MATHILDE’S TABLEAUX


Mathilde was in a flutter of excitement. For the first time since her
marriage she meant to give an entertainment to her friends. Small
evening companies were quite a usual thing among the lively French
emigrants, and an excuse to entertain one’s friends was seldom wanting.
Alaine had declared that she had no heart to dance, but Mathilde had a
fertile brain; there should be something else. She, so deft with brush
and needle, would arrange some tableaux. These would help to occupy
Alaine and give her something new to think about. She had been under
such a nervous strain and needed diversion. Mathilde quite appreciated
Michelle’s concern; they must rouse this triste Alaine. Life was sad
enough at best, why not try to put some joy into it? Therefore Mathilde
flitted about like some small bright-eyed bird, singing as she worked.
Her slim, clever little fingers gave a twist to this, a touch to that,
and lo, an artistic result.

“You are far more clever than I,” Alaine would say, admiringly, “and
yet I thought myself not deficient in embroidery and flower-painting.
The sisters used to say I was an industrious pupil. Those lovely
laces, Mathilde, where did you get them? And those muslins, so
beautiful they are.”

“They are what remain of my mother’s wardrobe,” Mathilde told her,
fingering the stuffs lovingly. “You shall wear this in the bower of
roses which I mean for the rose maiden.”

Alaine gave a little joyless laugh. “I, a rose maiden? No, no, do not
press me into any such service; rather am I a weeping Niobe, a desolate
Mara.”

Mathilde’s fingers flew back and forth as she sewed some strips
together. “And you were once such a happy girl, Alaine. If Pierre
should return in time you might find happiness with him, he is so good
and true. See how dark it looked to me at one time.”

“Pierre?”

“Yes. Gerard has told me why he went.”

Alaine let her hands lie idle in her lap for a moment and looked
mournfully out of the window. The year was past, but there was no
Pierre to claim her, and no Lendert to step in between her and duty.
“In what strange ways are our doings ordered,” she said, gravely. “We
mourn and sigh and fret over the difficulties in our pathway, and
before we know it some convulsion of nature has removed them and we
walk for evermore through a twilight world in which no stumbling is
possible. With the danger we lose the light.”

“Yes, but there is the morning still to come,” returned Mathilde,
cheerily. “Here comes Mère Michelle; I will leave you for a little, I
have forgotten something that I should have brought from my uncle’s. We
shall need it for our tableaux to-night.”

It was a full hour before she returned all in a flutter. She
sought Mère Michelle. There were whispers, chatterings, screams of
astonishment, falling almost without notice upon Alaine’s dull ears.
Mathilde did love surprises; she had some new scheme afoot for the
night’s entertainment. But the girl did arouse to a sense of more
important things being in prospect when Michelle, with much mystery,
came and clasped her in her arms.

“Prepare yourself, my Alainette; this day will have a happy ending for
you. Sorrow endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

“What is it? What is it?” Alaine asked, faintly.

“We have heard from Pierre.”

“Ah-h!” Alaine started. “He is coming?”

“No, not he. Some one in his stead.”

“My father!” Alaine clasped her hands over her heart, and again
Michelle fell upon her neck with tears and kisses and murmuring words
of love.

“When will he come?” Alaine asked. “It is not a false report? You are
sure, Michelle?”

“The letter arrived to-day; it was written hurriedly, and is only a
line: ‘M. Hervieu is discovered. He will set out as soon as possible
for Manhatte. I remain here.’ That was all.”

“Poor Pierre!” sighed Alaine, “he has condemned himself to a life of
slavery, I fear. Poor Pierre! There must be a drop of bitterness even
in this cup, Michelle.”

“Dear little one, so gloomy and unlike your old self. This will not
do--no, no. Here, Papa Louis wants you for a walk; the air is brisk and
keen and you have bent over those paper flowers all day. Go out and get
a breath.”

“Yes, take her off, Papa Louis. Go, both of you, and do not come back
for an hour. We do not want you around. We need all the space we can
get, and you are of such a size, Papa Louis, that you are in the way.”
And, laughing, Mathilde playfully pushed the good man out of the door.
“Bring back Alaine with some color, else I shall be ruined in paint for
her cheeks to-night.”

Papa Louis, always good company, was to-day in a high state of
jocularity. An entertainment such as this was dear to his heart. He and
Mathilde had pored over such books as the little community possessed,
had drawn upon their memories and upon their imaginations until they
felt that the tableaux would surpass anything of the kind yet shown in
the village. It was the kind of thing which gave Papa Louis supreme
pleasure. He was in his element. He could quote poetry, he could
make reference to classical characters, he could recall historical
personages with an ease which awoke a new humility in Michelle, grown
accustomed to ordering about this little man, whose knowledge of a
husbandman’s crafts was so small, and who so often aroused her mocking
laughter by his mistakes. He was superior. Yes, she knew it, and he had
stooped to marry her. And so Michelle wore a very meek look these days.

Gerard and Mathilde, two children, frolicked through it all, played
jokes upon each other, laughed and danced and quarrelled and kissed
between the quarrels, so that it was really quite a hubbub from which
Alaine escaped, given, too, a half-dozen other young people to join in
the chatter, neighboring maidens and their swains who were to take part
in the evening’s festivities.

These were all still there when Alaine returned from her walk, but
they were more subdued. They stopped their chatter as Alaine came in
and pressed one another’s hands sympathetically. They had an expectant
air as Alaine stepped into the room, and cast quick glances at the
improvised curtain, the old blue bedspreads hung below the rafters.

Mathilde went to Alaine and kissed her, then took the cold, thin hands
in hers. “You are returned just in time, my dear. We have changed the
tableaux somewhat, and will now rehearse the first one. Sit there,
between Papa Louis and Mère Michelle. We call this The Return. It
permits of two scenes. We shall want you for the second one, Alaine,
dear Alaine. Draw the curtain, Gerard.”

The blue linen hangings parted, and Alaine saw before her, smiling
a little, two men, one whose gray locks hung about a face somewhat
older, somewhat more careworn, than she remembered it, but still the
same that was her earliest memory. He rested his hand upon the shoulder
of a younger man upon whose smooth cheek burned the mark of the red
feather.

With parted lips and one cry, in which love, longing, and bewilderment
were united, Alaine sprang to her feet, made one bound, and was clasped
in her father’s arms.

“Drop the curtain, Gerard,” ordered Mathilde. “You have beheld the
second scene, my friends. This tableau will not be repeated.”

An hour later the guests came trooping in, the Allaires and the
Bonneaus, the Theroldes and the Thauvets. The news had spread abroad,
and Mathilde’s tableaux proved to be less of an excitement than this
drama in which the chief actors were Alaine and Theodore Hervieu and
Lendert Verplanck.

It was late when the last tableau was announced. Surely it was a rose
maiden who stood there in her gown of broidered pink, her short brown
curls garlanded, and the bloom on her cheeks and lips that given by the
touch of joy. So sweet and fair and slight she stood, and at her feet
two little loves from out of the roses aimed their arrows. Around her
glowed the flowers made by Mathilde’s cunning hands. At sight of her
who had suffered much, who was lost and was found, who had mourned and
had been mourned, who had been in perils oft, the whole company arose
as if by an impulse, and burst out into a psalm of praise, singing so
lustily that they might have been heard far in the quiet forest: “O
give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good!” And who in all that company
could sing the words with more exalted soul than Alaine?

It was when one after another had tramped home and the snatches of song
had died away that Mathilde, unable to curb her curiosity any longer,
asked, “And Pierre?”

“And Pierre?” mocked Gerard, his arm around her. “My wife, you see,
desires to know of him.”

Mathilde made a saucy face at him. “We desire to know of Pierre,” she
repeated. “No doubt you have told his story over a dozen times this
evening, but we have not heard, and we are not less friends than the
rest, M. Hervieu.”

“Pierre.” M. Hervieu looked at Alaine and smiled. “Pierre is quite
comfortable and in good hands. He is married.”

“Married!” the comical expression of dismay upon Mathilde’s face was a
sight to see. She turned to Gerard. “Then say no more to me of a man’s
constancy.”

“What I wish to know,” said Michelle, “is how it comes that you and M.
Verplanck appear in company.”

“That is a coincidence. I returned upon the first ship which touched
at Dominica upon her return voyage, and this happened to be the one
of which M. Verplanck is half owner. It seems that he,”--he placed a
kind hand upon the young man’s arm,--“our friend here, had taken the
journey to Guadaloupa some months ago, hoping to find me there. He was
misinformed; I was not at Guadaloupa but at Dominica, and there Pierre
Boutillier found me by chance. M. Verplanck had taken the precaution
to have inquiry made for me at each succeeding voyage, and when I took
passage upon the very ship that had come in search of me, the good
skipper, when he learned my name, was completely dumfounded. And when
upon arriving in port, M. Verplanck was there to receive his ship, he
received me also. Then, since our destination was the same, we came
together. I had no idea that I was so important a person that I must
be sought for by two strangers, but it seems I am of more value than I
knew.” He looked with loving eyes at Alaine as he said this.

Papa Louis laughed softly. “It is not always ourselves for which we are
valued, M. Hervieu, but for what we possess. I am of little account,
but Mathilde has coddled me ever since that day when she came to nurse
my wife.”

Mathilde gave him a gentle tap. “For shame, Papa Louis, you would imply
that I did so because of Gerard.”

“And was not that it?”

Mathilde pouted. “He tells dreadful stories, that Papa Louis. Go on,
M. Hervieu, we would hear more. No matter why you were sought, you
are here and we are very glad. We wish next to hear of M. Verplanck’s
adventures.”

But Michelle declared that that must wait till the morning, else Alaine
would have no rest at all. “And she is not yet as strong as we would
have her,” she said, solicitously.

It seemed to Alaine, in her little bed up under the eaves, that the
night was all too short for her long thoughts. Till morning she lay
wide awake, with such great joy and gladness tugging at her heart that
once or twice she sat up and put out her hand to touch the wall of her
room that she might be sure this was no dream. “Lendert! Father!” she
whispered. “I am happy! I am happy! It is so wonderful, dear God, to be
happy when I have been wretched for so long, so long.”

At dawn she arose and dressed quietly, then slipped softly down-stairs
and out into the autumn morning. Michelle and Gerard were already
astir, but she passed Michelle in her kitchen and Gerard in the garden
and went on to the edge of the wood, where a golden finger of light
was already touching the trees in their crimson. Before entering the
well-remembered path she stopped. There were footsteps behind her. She
turned to see that Lendert had followed her. He took her hand, and
together they went on into the still forest and with one consent knelt
there together.

“The house was too narrow for me,” said Alaine, when they arose and
faced each other. “I was too full of thanksgiving to give it utterance
there. My Lendert! my Lendert! Are we dead and is this heaven?” She
yielded her sweet body to his embrace. So thrilled with happiness she
was that it seemed that the world must fade before her blurred vision.

“My sweet! my sweet!” whispered Lendert, “I am a gift to you.” And
there in his arms she listened to the story of his rescue and received
her message.

Standing on tiptoe she touched her lips to the red scar upon his cheek.
“So I receive him, François,” she said. “Thou poor mistaken, unhappy
soul, God give thee peace in thine hour of death. I forgive thee. So
I receive this gift dedicated to me by thy great courage and by thy
supreme renunciation.”

The tangy, winelike odor of the leaves under their feet filled the air.
From the little farmsteads came the cheerful sounds of stirring life.
Through the purple mists at the end of the path could be seen glimpses
of the blue sound. The hush of Indian summer, not unlike that of an
expectant spring, was around and over them.

“Do you remember that last morning when we went out into the woods
together?” Alaine asked.

“Can we forget it?”

“Never has broken a morning since that when I have not felt the horror
of it. That was why I came out so early, that I might take my happiness
with the dawn and remember that day no more. I have been so wretched,
so weary.”

“And now?”

She gazed at him with eyes full of love, while into his own came the
look which long ago had caught her heart. “Thou lovest me?” he murmured.

“I love thee! I love thee! Ah, how I love thee!”

“And so I love thee. No one shall ever part us again.”

“But thy mother?”

“She does not know. I have in some way missed her, and therefore I must
leave thee for a little that I may find her; but we shall not even then
be parted, for there is now no one to do us harm.”

Hand in hand, yet in soberer mood, they went back to the house. Lendert
had told his story to Alaine’s father and had not been heard unkindly.
If his mother’s consent could be obtained all would go well, he
believed.

“You will not leave us?” Michelle exclaimed in dismay when Lendert
announced his intention of seeking his mother. Pierre disposed of,
Gerard married, François beyond return, she began to think it would be
well after all if this young man were not allowed to wander too far
away. Besides, she really liked him and was bent upon securing Alaine’s
happiness. “He would make a desirable husband for Alaine,” she
confided to M. Hervieu. “He has good prospects, and it is not so far
to Manhatte, where they could live. It would be well if the girl were
settled, she has had so many experiences, and I think she could not do
better.”

M. Hervieu nodded and smiled. He understood Michelle’s concern for the
girl, who had been as her very own, but he had observed a habit of
self-restraint in these years past, and was not inclined to discuss the
subject yet. For all that, he, too, advised Lendert not to return at
once to his mother’s home. “She has heard of your having been there and
of your going on to Manhatte. She will in all probability go there at
once to overtake you.”

“And so you may keep it up, dodging each other for weeks,” said
Michelle. “Better remain here, my friend.”

Lendert considered the matter. “I will go to the town and leave word
with my mother’s friends that I am here, and I will furthermore send a
message to her that I await her pleasure. If she wills it so, I will go
to her.”

It was late one afternoon a week after that Alaine, from the porch
where she had been sitting with her father, looked down the street
to see three figures approaching. She had been examining the little
packet sent her by Felice. “I send you a small token of my esteem,”
the little lady wrote. “May this silver dove take you an olive branch
of peace.” Then followed a few gracious words, and at the end, “I
have a curiosity to know if you ever loved Pierre Boutillier. You will
understand, being a woman, why I wish to know this. If I believed your
heart given to him I should not be happy in what I have done, but in
sending you your father instead of a lover, I feel sure I am doing you
no wrong. Assure me of this and receive my gratitude.”

Alaine was smiling over these words when she beheld the three advancing
figures. Surely that stride was very familiar. She sprang to her feet.
“It is Jeanne! Jeanne Crepin! and Petit Marc, and, oh, my father, it is
Madam De Vries herself!”

It was Madam who arrived first, for she was riding ahead of the other
two, who tramped along with a free swinging walk. She alighted from her
horse and went tremblingly toward the girl, who stood by her father’s
side not less agitated. In these months Madam had aged greatly. She
looked like an old woman. “My son! My son!” she cried. “Where is he? I
want my son!”

“He is here. We have sent for him. He will arrive at once,” M. Hervieu
returned courteously. “Allow me to lead you in, madam.”

“Madam!” Alaine stood shyly by.

“Alaine!” The mother sank into a chair and began to weep softly. “Give
him back to me, my boy. My poor boy!”

“He is here. You shall see him at once,” repeated Alaine, kneeling
by her. “Madam, this is my father, who has lately been restored to
his daughter. He can understand.” She saw Lendert coming and ran out
another way. For some reason she would rather not witness the meeting
between mother and son.

She ran out the gate and down the road to meet Jeanne just beyond the
fence. “Jeanne! Jeanne! it is so good to see you again. Oh, you good
Jeanne, how can I thank you and Petit Marc for your goodness to M.
Verplanck? And Jeanne, Jeanne, it is my father who is in there. There
are so many wonderful things happening. Come in, come in.”

Jeanne shrank back a little. “Will I do, Alaine? Will I do? Remember
I must meet Michelle with dignity. I am really trembling, Alaine, old
stupide that I am. After all these years, and it is Theodore Hervieu in
there.”

If she were uncertain of her welcome, its heartiness took away all
discomfort. It was M. Hervieu who grasped her hands and called her his
dear old friend Jeanne Bisset. It was Michelle who, rather awkwardly,
but in all kindliness, first hesitated and then embraced her. It was
Lendert who led her to his mother, saying, “But for these two, Jeanne
Crepin and Marc Lenoir, I should no longer be living, madam.”

This caused Madam’s tears again to flow, and she sobbed forth, “And I
drove her from me. Twice has she heaped coals of fire upon my head:
first by warning me on that dreadful morning, and then she saves you.
I am a wicked old woman, Jeanne Crepin.”

“We are all wicked, whether we be old or young, men or women,” returned
Jeanne, seriously. “I am no saint myself, neither is Petit Marc.”

M. Hervieu looked at the big coureur de bois with attention, then he
clapped him on the shoulder. “Surely I should know Marc Lenoir. No,
no, let us say nothing of those old days. We know only these new ones.
We are friends all, yes?” Yet when he looked around it was Alaine who
turned away her head. Madam had not bestowed upon her the greeting one
gives a daughter.

“I am not a rich man,” M. Hervieu went on, “but I am a very fortunate
one, or I have good friends, and I have enough to begin the world anew.
I already have made my plans to go to Manhatte and engage in trade
there. We shall be quite comfortable, my daughter and I, and I trust we
shall be content.”

Petit Marc had taken a packet from his blouse. “There is a small matter
here that I wish to talk about,” he said. “Perhaps we older ones would
best discuss it by ourselves at first.”

Mathilde, who had come in some time before, now led the way out.
Lendert and Alaine followed. “They do not want us to hear,” Mathilde
remarked, “yet I am consumed with curiosity.”

Alaine walked by Mathilde’s side. She did not look at Lendert, but kept
her eyes cast down as she walked, and the young man looked troubled.
“She does not forgive me,” Alaine’s look said.

Petit Marc drew his chair up to the table; the others followed his
example. He slowly opened the paper he held. “I have here a copy of
the last will and testament of François Dupont,” he began. “Before
the death of the testator he converted all his estates in France into
English moneys. The amount is deposited in Orange with trustworthy
persons. It is not a sum to be despised. This he leaves share and share
alike to Lendert Verplanck and Alaine Hervieu should they marry. If,
for any reason, there are objections raised to the marriage of Lendert
Verplanck to Alaine Hervieu, he foregoes his share, and it is to be
given for the sole use of Alaine Heirvieu. Has any one here a word to
say?” His eyes glanced from M. Hervieu to Madam De Vries.

The latter nervously fingered a hand-screen upon the table before her.
M. Hervieu looked at her inquiringly. “Madam, I would know your desires
in this matter. We are among those who are aware of the attachment of
these two, and we need not seem blind to it.”

“My son is all I have in the world,” began Madam.

“My daughter is all I have,” returned M. Hervieu. “I am not anxious
that she should marry. I can maintain her in comfort, and she goes into
no family not proud to receive her.”

“She’ll have no lack of suitors either,” put in Jeanne’s gruff voice.

“With such a purse,” added Michelle complacently.

“Without it,” came from Papa Louis. “Alaine Hervieu has never had to
lack for lovers. She has birth and beauty, and there are still those
in France who would think themselves rich in gaining her if she were
penniless.”

“And,” said Jeanne, watching Madam narrowly, “it is she who will be the
gainer if the marriage does not take place. After all is said, would it
not be better that it should not? I have stood in place of mother to
her, and that is my opinion.”

“And I the same,” Michelle agreed, interpreting rightly the sly glance
from Jeanne’s eye, and giving her husband a nudge.

Papa Louis looked thoughtful. “She might do better,” he said,
reflectively; and then, as if recovering himself, “I beg your pardon,
Madam De Vries, but I speak as a father, and, all things considered,
you will admit that she might do better.”

“You are all against me,” passionately Madam broke forth, roused to
anger by this seeming defiance of her opinion and this setting aside of
her son’s interests. “Have I nothing to say? Do you all dare to dismiss
the matter without a word from me?” She arose and swept to the door.
“Alaine,” she called. “Alaine, come, my daughter, it is your Lendert’s
mother who calls you. Come, my daughter.” And Alaine, from where she
was dejectedly pacing the walk, ran to her and was clasped in Madam’s
arms.

“Sh! sh!” said Jeanne, as all the rest began to laugh, though her own
face was broad with smiles. “We must not let her suspect that we have
done it. It was the only way to manage her.”

There were several other bequests in François’s will. A ring and all
personal effects to Adriaen, except a sword and a brace of pistols
to Petit Marc. To Michelle was left a tidy sum: “In affectionate
acknowledgment of past kindnesses.”

A silence fell upon them all as the last words of the will were read.
Even now the man’s strong individuality touched them all with a
nearness not possible in their thought of another less forceful though
more worthy of being loved.

“You will stay with us, Jeanne,” Alaine begged, when they were alone in
the garden, for Alaine must show this old friend all her haunts. “You
will not return to that rough life.”

Jeanne hitched her shoulders and gave a twitch to her petticoats. “I
couldn’t stand them much longer. We must go back. We could not endure
any other life now.”

“But why we? You do not need to follow Petit Marc. Come and live with
us in our home in Manhatte.”

Jeanne screwed up her eyes in the way that she had when embarrassed or
amused. “Didn’t I tell you?” she said. “We are married.”

And then Alaine hugged her and kissed her till she cried, and called
herself an old stupide, a chat-huant, an insensée, a dindon, and
various other names with which Alaine had been familiar of old.

“I have not forgotten,” she told Alaine, “but one must have something
to do, and Petit Marc, he will soon be growing old, and who will take
care of him then?”

“Who indeed?” Alaine held the good weather-beaten face between her
palms. “I shall often, often think of you up there, you two who have
done so much for me, to whom I owe so much, and it will make me very
glad to know you are together. But you must remain to see me married.
Trynje and her husband and Mynheer van der Deen and Madam, his goede
vrouw, and I cannot miss you from among those who love me and who will
come to see me take my Lendert for my husband.”

After more persuasion Jeanne promised, and with Petit Marc attended
the ceremony, a month later, the two being the most conspicuous couple
present, if one may except the bride and groom. And, even in that day
when romantic stories were common and thrilling adventure no novelty,
the tale of the love of Lendert and Alaine brought to the French church
in Marketfield Street such a crowd on that Sunday that the “cars” and
the people fairly jostled each other for blocks around.

It was a few days after her marriage that Alaine answered the letter
of Felice, and among other things she wrote: “If it be any comfort
to you, madame, take my assurance that with my whole heart I love and
have ever loved the man who is now my very dear husband. He is Lendert
Verplanck, whom your husband will remember, and though fate has played
us many sad tricks, we are now supremely happy. At one time it seemed
that we should never marry, yet even then, believe me, I could never
have become the wife of any one else. We shall live in Manhatte, where
my father and my husband have entered into business, and my husband has
promised that upon one of his voyages to the islands he will take me
with him that I may thank you in person for your great kindness to my
father. I congratulate you, madame, upon possessing so good a husband,
and I congratulate, with all my heart, my old friend Pierre Boutillier,
who has been so fortunate as to win you for his wife.”

When Felice showed this to Pierre she did so with dancing eyes and
dimpling mouth. “What did I tell you?” she said. “Are you fortunate, my
melancholy love?”

And Pierre, for answer, smiled, and kissed her.


THE END.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.





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