Because of conscience

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,—

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,—

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.”