Because of conscience

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.