CHAPTER XXXIII.
BLEUS.
The Haviland party were not the only people alive to the necessities of the contest. It was not seldom that in the Ontarian's walks during those few days, the steady, inscrutable bust of Grandmoulin passed him, driven in one direction or another by Libergent; and sometimes Picault accompanied.
Grandmoulin, indeed, made herculean efforts. His grand chefs d'oeuvre of oratory—soul stirring appeals, in the name of all that was sacred in honor and religion, for his hypocritical and corrupt purposes, were lifted in noble structures of eloquence before the people, till it seemed as if the lavishness of his genius and labor could only be explained by the desire of challenging the other great orator of the race. The young energies of Haviland responded readily. Their speeches were reported in full for the journals of the cities and watched for everywhere. It was the battle of Cataline and Cicero.
The back parishes were not so soundly "Red" as Dormillière: they usually polled a considerable Blue vote, and were very unstable. Here were concentrated the efforts of Grandmoulin to cajole and Picault to buy.
Once thus Chrysler met Libergent driving Grandmoulin in a "buck-board," while another person sat in the back seat.
"Chrysler! Chrysler!—Listen!" exclaimed the person in the back seat.
Chrysler recognized an Ottawa acquaintance.
"De Bleury! how do you do!"
De Bleury put his hand on the reins to stop the vehicle:
"Come up here, Chrysler, we go past the Manoir."
"Thank you, I enjoy walking."
"Come along, come along; we don't hear excuses in the country. Come,
Chrysler, the road is long."
In order not to offend, Chrysler, in spite of his objection to the company, took the unoccupied place behind Grandmoulin.
With Libergent, Chrysler did not reap much in conversation. He was conciliatory in his solitary-like way, and had indulged for once in too much liquor.
"Right Hon'ble Premier,—Sec' State.—Hon'ble Mr. Grandm'lin—all my fren's. You know dose gen'lmen? All my fren's. Da's all. My fren's goin' make it all right, eh? I re'spect'ble 'nough." The half-seas-confidential style.
Grandmoulin acknowledged the stranger but gravely, and was at once immutable—oppressed with thought for the country's welfare! As he sat before Chrysler, and the latter felt the nearness of his broad shoulders and coarse black mass of hair, he could not but picture the man within sinking into littleness and self-contempt at the debased uses of his great talent.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FREEMASON.
Ross de Bleury, the hospitable passenger, was a character. A man of immense physical strength and abounding spirits, soundly and stoutly built, of medium height, brown hair, full eyes and large nostrils, and strong merry lips, always devising some ingenious adventure.
One of his schemes, a quarter joke, three-quarters half-serious, was to band together all persons in the Dominion bearing the Ross name into one Canadian clan, he to be chief! His own surname had first of all been simply Bleury, but energetic genealogical researches having discovered to him that the founder of his line in France was a Scotch adventurer, he made bold to resurrect the original name, and add to it what was already a "Charles Réné Marie-Auguste-Raoul-St. Cyr-de Bleury."
Jest, quip and lively saying shortened his route to the doorway of the Circuit Court, and he insisted on Chrysler's passing to his quarters upstairs. The court-room was stocked with dusty benches and tables, on and about which a small but noisy company were postured. One reckless fellow swinging an ale-mug was singing:—
"Tant qu'on le pourra, larirette,
On se damnera, larirà!"
Two girls stood together near the door laughing brazen giggles.
They were the Jalberts, daughters of the innkeeper, who himself with two young politicians from Montreal were impressing on a habitant: "If you don't vote for Libergent, you can't go to heaven;" Jalbert being an adherent of the Blues in the hope of "running" Dormillière, if they succeeded, for his license had been taken away by the new movement. The bailiff, a wolfish-looking creature, who was always to be had for drink, also sat there trailing his vast loose moustache over a table. When Grandmoulin entered, a little crowd, like the tail of a comet, followed him into the room. As he passed through he said no word, but drew his cloak about him and moved forward sphinx-like to the bar of the court, where he sat down and commenced to converse with Libergent.
Chrysler mounted the stairs with his entertainer and came upon an entirely different scene. De Bleury's spacious attic was appropriated to the rough and ready convenience of himself alone, and there was something quizzical about its expanses of brown dimnesses and darknesses, the cobwebby light that struggled in through the one high dormer window, the closet-like partition in the middle with a ticket-selling orifice, and the three or four rough chairs, which, with table, newspaper, and a basket of bottles, formed the furniture of this apartment. What work was done here, and how any one could choose such a spot to do work in were questions asked you mysteriously by every object about. As soon as he had waved Chrysler to one of the chairs and sank back upon another into a shadow, he stretched out his hand and pulled the basket of bottles towards him.
"Now, sir, the question of fortune to every good man as he enters the world: 'What will you have.' I don't believe in fate: I believe in fortune: good things for everybody; let him choose. It's the man who won't accept good mouthfuls who is miserable. My Lord, what will you have?"
"I never take anything, thank you!"
"Eh, Mon Dieu! You wouldn't have me drink alone! You grieve my soul, Chrysler! Bois, done, my dear friend, we will be merry together. In this cursed country, among these oxen of the farms, we don't often meet a civilized friend." In saying this, he was dexterously pulling the cork from a bottle of champagne, which his right hand now poured into two wine glasses, as skilfully as his left had whisked them out of a corner of the basket.
"Drink quickly,—Eh bien, you do not wish to? Your health then!—May you long survive your principles, and experience a blessed death of gout!"
He quaffed off the glass and poured out another, laughing and chatting on with such bounding, irresistible spirits that his guest caught a kind of sympathetic infection. Glass after glass interminable disappeared down his throat in a kind of intermittent cascade. The Ontarian laughed more than he had done for many a year.
"But, De Bleury," he got breath to say, "what is your important capacity here, that they give you such sumptuous quarters?"
"Commercial traveller in the only commerce of the country. We have no business here, you know, except statesmanship, the trade in voters, le métier de ministre. You see a man;—tell me how much he owns:—I can tell you his election price. The schedule is simply: How much taxes does he pay?—Pay my taxes; I vote your side. There lies the only shame of my Scotch blood that they have never devised a commerce so obvious. It's like a bailiff we used to tease; he had no money, poor devil, so when he came into the bar he used to say to us, 'Make me drunk and have some fun with me.' 'Pay my taxes and have some fun with me:' the same thing, you see. All men are merchandise. Ross de Bleury alone has no price—but for a regular good guzzler, I could embezzle a Returning Officer."
A rap sounded on the door of the stairs.
"I resemble my ancestor, the Chevalier Jean Ross, who, when he was storming a castle in Flanders, exclaimed: 'Victory, companions! we command the door of the wine cellar!'"
The words of a Persian proverb: "You are a liar, but you delight me," passed through Chrysler's mind.
The rap sounded again, and louder, on the door below.
De Bleury's manner changed. He looked at his companion as if revolving some plan; then moving rapidly to the ticket-office-like-closet, he opened a door, and beckoned him in, signing to sit down and keep quiet. The closet was darker than the darkest part of the surrounding garret, for the dormer window in it, similar to the one near the table, was boarded up, all but a single irregular aperture, admitting light enough only to reveal the surroundings after lapse of some time.
De Bleury, however, by holding his purse up to the chink of light, managed to assure himself of the denomination of a bank-note, and then, turning hastily, lifted the sliding door of the ticket-hole a trifle and pushing out the money, left it partly under the slide, letting in a grey beam on their darkness. He then silently applied his eye to an augur-hole above the slide, and waited. Meantime the knock sounded once more and pair of heavy steps came up the stairs, and tramped towards them; and some indefinable recognition of the heavy tread came vaguely to Chrysler. The steps stopped, the note was withdrawn, the tread sank away down the stairs, and De Bleury, rollicking with suppressed laughter, opened the door.
"You have overseen a ceremony of the Freemasons," he said. "Truly. You don't believe it? I am a Freemason, I am, Chrysler," he said, sententiously, with a trace of the champagne, "I have observed a square and compass among the charms at your watch-chain. You know, therefore, your duties towards a brother, not, perhaps, not to see; but having seen, not to divulge. You understand?"
"Perfectly, my dear De Bleury. Excuse me, I have an engagement at the
Manoir."
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.
"Prôneurs de l'ancien régime, dîtes-moi ce que vous faites de ces belles et riches natures de femmes, qui sortent du sang genereux du peuple?"
—ETIENNE PARENT.
During the excitement and bustle, Mr. Chrysler also sometimes fell into the modest society of Josephte. The girl seemed sad at these times, and to be losing the serene peace which at first seemed her characteristic. He remarked this to Madame Bois-Hébert one day as he met her sitting in the shades of the pine-walk reading a devotional work.
Madame was a figure still able to command as well as to attract respect. Dignity and ability had not yet departed from her face and bearing, and quietude was the only effect of age upon her, beyond falling cheeks and increasing absorption in exercises of religion.
"Does it not appear to you that your demoiselle is sad?" he asked.
"It is true, monsieur; her mind is troubled at present."
"The cause is some cavalier."
"You judge correctly. Benoit does not wish her to marry as she desires. And though he wishes her to unite herself to a brute compared with her cavalier, yet the latter is himself an individual of no consequence, and she has been well advised to relinquish him."
"Who is it advises that?"
"Her friends, who see in her a more lovely destiny. The dear child will make perhaps a Saint. You do not know the expiations and indulgences she has earned these several years by prayers and devotions, her pure nature, her admirable conduct. She is not for the world, but for God."
"What did Josepthe herself think?"
That which Madame had said of her nature was correct enough. She was a delight to the sisters in their sad, austere lives. "She is like an angel, and has the movements of one," they said. Very unlike to, for instance, the daughters Jalbert, those bold and idle girls, whose steady occupation was tom-boying scandalously with chance young men, and jeering impudent jeers at everybody.
Her haunts were in removed and shady nooks, such as the little dell behind the log cabin of the Le Bruns. There, one hot afternoon he found her sitting under the shade of the windmill, dressed as usual in neat black, and as usual lately, pale. The little ones ran, sat and played around her; Henri, Rudolphe and Elisâ in the pride of their enterprise tugging the long beam by which horse or man in the preceding century had turned the conical cap of the mill; their efforts cracking and shaking the crazy roof, but availing nothing except to disturb a crow or two near by, among the white birches through whose clusters gleamed the River in the sun.
What brought Josephte to the Le Brun dell?
Et quoi! She was weeping.
Those little children saw not her silent tears. Chrysler beheld them—crystalline drops on pale, soft cheek, emblems of pure heart and secret sorrow; but she checked them when he drew near and sat up composed.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "What is it troubles thee so profoundly? Tell me; I am an old man and thy friend."
"Monsieur, Monsieur, I ask your pardon,"—she broke again into tears. Fortunately, all the children were running off among the trees.—"My sin is great:"
"And what is the offence, my child?"
Josephte was silent, and the blood rushed over her face.
"I mean thee no ill, Mlle. Josephte. Perhaps I can assist or advise thee."
"They have promised me to the good God: alas! and my heart thinks of a mortal! I never could be like the others.—I cannot forget," and she broke completely down, sobbing again and again. In a little while he spoke, hoping to soothe her.
"This may be no more than natural, my dear."
"The natural heart, monsieur, is full of sin; and that is ten times worse for a woman. O if I could love God alone!" and again she sobbed convulsively.
Trained as the highest type of Catholic mind, her imagination habitually pictured two worlds—the one of exquisite spiritual light and purity, and spotless with the presence of saints, of the Virgin; of God the Father: the other the world of mankind,—the "world," shadowed with wickedness and mourning, and whose pleasure is itself a sin. She yearned towards the first; she sank back with acute sensitiveness from the second. For her, to enter a church was to be overpowered with the communion of spirits; to think a single thought leading away from God was to commit a crime. To know such a girl is to respect for ever the nun's orders in which natures like hers take refuge.
"Josephte, ma'amselle," said Chrysler very quietly and pleadingly, "do you not love François?"
The blood swept over her forehead again, and changed it once more from white to red. The tears stopped in her eyes and she regarded him for a moment with an intense look.
"François loves you," he proceeded.
He went on: "Where is the difficulty? Is it not very cruel to deny
François your love? Who made you promise that?"
"O sir, they willed that I should marry another."
"It is only your father who wished you to marry Cuiller."
"Madame la Seigneuresse wished me to enter the convent." Again she burst into bitter tears. Rocking to and fro she continued with breaking heart, "I promised it to God himself."
Chrysler had no wish to meddle with the belief of his new friends. Here, however, it was a matter of humanity and common sense. He could not let the young girl's life be ruined. He said: "My child, le bon Dieu never asks the unreasonable. Is not God kinder than you; and will he demand of you and François what you would not of another?"
"Monsieur, is it possible that that is true?" sobbed she, weeping freer.
"Does not your heart say so?" said he.
"I know not. It must be so. You speak like a priest."
"Think," he said, "and pray to Him about it, and hope a little for
François. He loves you. It would be so cruel to him to lose you."
Henri's voice broke joyously out of the shrubbery:—
"Good at all times
Is sweet bread,
But specially when
With sugar spread."
Chrysler moved away, and passing through the trees stood on the bank, looking down on the beach and the sunny surface of the River. He had helped to right one little matter anyway, in Dormillière.
A guttural call in a low voice startled him,—a subdued longdrawn "Hoioch!—hoioch!—hoioch!" followed by a few words of instructions rapidly uttered in what seemed a kind of patois—and on turning he saw below, along the shore at the left, the little figure of the Bonhomme rapidly pulling in one end of a net through the water, while the other end was managed by a younger fisherman attired as rudely and queerly. It needed a close glance to see that the second man was François, assisting his father. Together they suggested that strange caste—the fishers of the great river—a caste living in the midst of a civilization, yet as little of it as the gipsies—families handing down apart among themselves from generation to generation manners, customs, haunts, unique secrets of localities, and sometimes apparently a marvellous skill. These are the true geographers and unboasting Nimrods. You who have ever seen the strange sight of the spearing under the flame of immense torches in the rapids of the Buisson, where no straining of your own eyes could ever discern the trace of a fish; and you with whom it was an article of faith that certain death waited in every channel, swirl and white horse of the thundering Lachine Rapids, until one day some one speculated how the market boats of the lake above could turn up every morning safe and regular at the Bonsecours Market,—will be ready to understand.
However, it was not long before the net was drawn up and Chrysler stood beside them, the greetings were over and all three were duly seated, each on his chosen boulder under the green poplar saplings, talking:
"François," said the Bonhomme to his son, "Monsieur does not think it probable that Cuiller will marry Josephte."
The young man's unconquerable cheerfulness faded for a moment. He was silent.
"Why is it Mr. Benoit will not accept you?"—Chrysler asked, very interested.
"Solely because I lost my money, air. I was coming to receive his blessing on our wishes."
"How was the money lost? That was a singular circumstance."
"I had seven hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket. It was on the steamboat down from Montreal, at night time, in the lower cabin. I got a corner with Cuiller between two barrels and a bale of blankets and went to sleep from time to time. The lamps did not burn well. There was a crowd of people. A pedlar was next me whose features I have forgotten. Cuiller says it was that pedlar who took my money. I will not blame a man without knowing something about him; but the truth is that when I got up and searched my pockets, my purse, my money, my pleasure, my life's profit,—all were lost, and I had nothing for it but to sit down and cry tears, after enquiring of all the people."
"In what pieces was your money?"
"Six bills of a hundred, ten tens and ten fives, sir!"
"Don't you recollect anything about the pedlar?"
"I was certain I recollected him getting off, but Cuiller saw him later."
"If Cuiller knew he took your purse why didn't he wake you or stop him?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Cuiller is as much to blame as the pedlar."
"You think so?" said the simple Bonhomme.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
ZOTIQUE'S MISGIVING.
At sunset of the day before the Election, Chamilly came over very tired from the Institution and ordered tea to be brought out on the lawn. Little Breboeuf sat with them; the visiting politicians also; and last, least, and highly delighted at the honor, Francois Vadeboncoeur dit Le Brun. To-morrow is the election day.
"How do we stand, Zotique?" Chamilly asked, with some air of fatigue. Zotique's duty of directing the actual carrying out of the campaign made him an authority on the "feel" of the constituency.
"Breboeuf will give you figures," replied he, reticently, for the struggle had proved grave. The Curé had almost succeeded, so far, in keeping his vow.
"Eh bien, ma brebis?"
"From the lists as Zotique has marked them I compute a majority of 28."
"Morbleu,—that's not comfortable!" exclaimed a young editor, fond of old oaths.
"But these estimations of Mr. Genest's prove surprisingly accurate," explained Chamilly.
"A majority of 28, composed as follows:" Breboeuf continued; "Donnillière, 83 to 44—majority 39; Petite Argentenaye, 96 to 47;—majority 49; St. Dominique, 11 to 19—majority 8; Miséricorde, majority 47. Esneval.—"
"Wait!"
Zotique spoke, and his eyes darkened energetically.
"I cannot guarantee you, Miséricorde."
All looked at each other. There was consternation.
"But surely Benoit has reported on that place," said Chamilly.
"In my absence. He has met me as little as possible. But Cuiller was seen an hour ago entering the Circuit Court."
"Traitors!" breathed de la Lande.
"I do not trust this American. Unless I was ever mistaken, he and Benoit are goods and effects of Libergent, and we must save Miséricorde without letting those know, of perish. Let one go over; you cannot, and I cannot, nor any of the prominent, but let us send our François here, let him discover how it stands, and be back within two hours, so that we can work there, if needful, the rest of the night. This is the only salvation."
"I will go," cried François cheerfully, and picking up his hat, started rapidly away. Josephte came in at the gates as he was passing out; she bowed to him, and moved by us into the house, wrapped in the composure of one mourning at heart.
On hurried François, blithely unconscious of any dark prospect on his hopes of Josephte, but in visions, as he walked, of a little snow-white cottage known to him, with only one window in front, green-shuttered, but a dear little opening in the attic gable, and a leafy honey suckle creeping over the door way.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A CRIME!
"The veil of mist that held her eyes was rent
As by a lightning flash…."
—W. KIRBY
An hour passes. The shades draw on and begin to blend hues and forms. Chrysler moves his deliberative survey over the neat-clipped grass and the tall hedge, the poplars looking over it from the other side of the highway, the boughs and trunks of the great triple tree—and the little pinnacles along the Manor-house. A couple of the visitors along the paths are discussing the situation with dapper Parisian steps and gestures.
Suddenly the shades creep perceptibly deeper. The gate rattles. A wild acting man—it is Benoit in his sky-blue clothes—rushes panting in, throwing out his arms before him, stumbling and gasping inarticulately lamentations of anguish. "He is dead; my God, the poor young man! Poor François! My God! my God!"
Yes, it is Benoit Iscariotes.
Everyone springs to him. A great tragedy has occurred—for Dormillière; perhaps little for a more experienced world. In Benoit's mind quivers a scene that has set shouting all the wild voices of his conscience. Ever-cheerful François, so full of life, so faithful, well named "Vadeboncoeur," lies motionless upon the highway, deadly white, with glazed, half-closed eyes. Blood trickles from his open mouth, scatters from a frightful gash over his forehead, and bathes the ground in a dark pool; and a heavy stone lies near and relates its murderous tale. This is what guilty Jean-Benoit saw at his feet, as, having finished his "labors" to his own satisfaction he was returning from Miséricorde in the footsteps of his coadjutor Cuiller. O, as the poor body lay in the blood like a judgment before him, and those half-closed eyes seemed to gleam at him from their lids, what a fearful blow did Conscience strike that hypocrite, leaping from the lair in which it had long lain in wait!
He cannot stir. A mighty thunder cloud rises up from behind high above him, and darkens the earth. A silence lies on the trees, the road, the moor, and all around to the horizon—a silence accusing him.
Not a leaf moved. The sun went down. The bright little narrow gleam under the eyelids of the dead stared slily up to him with an awful triumph. His heart was caught by the grip of a skeleton hand. He could feel its several sinews as they tightened their grasp. It was impossible to break away—the grip of the hand was on the heart in, his breast, and he was in the power of the triumphant corpse!
What made him reel, what made him leap at length with such an insane cry, over the ghastly obstacle? He will go mad. This not quite balanced brain might coldly enough commit even some kinds of murder, but fright can unhinge it. Is he not mad, to flee so wildly? He runs—he runs—he gropes, under his black thundercloud and load of fright and agony, towards the glimmer that he must fly to those he has wronged. To her first—to Josephte, his cruelly-treated daughter—the hour tells him where she is! Flying, stumbling, pained, groaning, out of breath, fearing the lone hedges of the road, in wild struggle throwing his vain lust of appearances for once to the winds, and having behind and above him as he fled, the sky filled with vast pursuing shapes, with shrieks and curses, and before all the pursuers the CORPSE, he reaches at last the Manoir, and stops before it crying out. It seems as if the instinct failed him here, and the Mansion's imposing front forbade.
She hears though. The maiden's heart, and the world's indefinite voices, beats sharply at certain sounds before the ear has caught them, for they strike the inner strings of its being. First a pang of great alarm,—and then she heard. Rushing forth, she clasps the sobbing wretch in her arms and cries, "My father, what say'st thou! My God, what is it?—what has befallen François?—O my dear father!"
"He is dead, he is dead!—thy loved one,—at La Miséricorde."
"O Holy Virgin!"
Josephte did not fall in a swoon: she darted towards the gate.
Chrysler took the man and made him sit down on a bench,—a wild spectacle of reason in the course of dethronement. The household stood about: the two visitors looked on curiously and made useless suggestions. Haviland and Zotique, driving past to make sure of Miséricorde, heard a commotion and turned their horses in. Benoit threw himself on his knees to Chamilly, violently begging his forgiveness, and incoherently confessing the evil work of himself and Spoon, whereat Zotique attacked him with maledictions.
Chamilly restrained his companion. Soul of man was never seen to soar more easily over injury.
"My dear friend, calm yourself. If there has been bad work, what should be done now is to try and rectify it. Repeat what you were saying of François."
"The poor young man! The poor young man! I have seen him dead on the road."
The impulse to act was that which came naturally to Haviland. "Not a moment, Zotique!" and almost immediately the rattle of the wheels was dying into the distance.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE PASSING OF THE HOST.
They found François, Chamilly said, with Josephte kneeling over him loosening his collar, and tenderly binding her neckerchief over his head with neatness and gentleness quite enough indeed for any Heaven-selected Sister of Charity.
Running home breathless, dishevelled and desperate, she had frightened her brother and grandfather into speechless activity by a terrible command to harness a horse! Dragging out a light vehicle herself she speedily completed the arrangements, and whipping the animal pitiless lashes, dashed out of the presence of her relatives and was soon at the side of her injured lover, on the moorland road.
It must not tell against Zotique's humanity that he had all this time such a mastering sense of the necessity of getting on to Miséricorde that, after barely aiding to place the body on Chamilly's vehicle, he took possession of the lighter one of Josephte, and sped on for his destination. The young girl and Haviland, however, conveyed their charge carefully and safely to the farm-house, had him laid upon her own prettily-belaced bed, and Haviland insisted—was it not a sacrifice in him on that critical evening of his election!—in watching with her the whole night by the bedside of François. As the silent hours were broken by the occasional sobs of Josephte, the young seigneur often gazed anxiously into the face of his faithful friend, wiping the bruised forehead and hoping that he might not die.
Chrysler hurried down into the village in the dusk for medicine. By the occasional lights of houses he discerned the people, up and out discussing the exciting topic. Shadowy young men were standing on the path, straining their eyes to make out who passed by; shadowy fathers of families sat together at their doorways; half discernible women conversed from window to window.
A hand-bell rings somewhere in the dark. It slowly swings and rings a thin, melancholy warning tone, comes nearer, a lantern appears, the young men, the fathers, the women, the miscellaneous groups, seem, for half-a-second, to disappear like lights put out, they drop on their knees so instantly wherever they happen to be. A white-robed figure—an acolyte—passes; feebly shone upon by a lantern; the "young curé" follows, bearing the holy wafer,—a ghostly procession; and Chrysler takes off his hat, for he recognizes it as the passing of the Host.
When they are fairly past, and have disappeared into the gloom, the shadowy shapes all rise from their knees, and follow the direction with eyes and ears, and a distinct, ominous murmur passes through the whole village, for clearly François Le Brun is in articulo mortis.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ELECTION.
Election day at Dormillière was as election days in country places always—that is, a great peal of driving to and fro, and a great deal of crowding about the doors of the poll, and a dense atmosphere of smoke and had jokes among the few to whom the polling-room was reserved, and now and then a flying visit from Haviland, Libergent, or Grandmoulin, for either of whom the people immediately made way by stumbling back on each other's toes; and intermittent activity at head-quarters; and ominous quiet at the parsonage.
Zotique was mysterious, and in better humor. He supervised with determination, and seemed to know how to calculate the exact effect of everything. Breboeuf was marvellously transformed into a little flying spider, running backwards and forwards strengthening Haviland's web. The Honorable seemed to act slowly, but really with deliberation and effect, remarking neglected points, and himself seeing that certain "weak ones" were brought to the right side of the poll. The schoolmaster was away haranguing the back parishes. For the Blue side, Picault and Grandmoulin appeared but once on the scene, but the energy of Ross de Bleury was astonishing. Cajoling, ordering, opening bottles aside and treating, volubly greeting everybody in his strong voice all day, he seemed to have raised supporters for his party of whom no one would have dreamt except Zotique; but the little closet up in the attic satisfied the requirements of strict logic.
Haviland had added the fatigues of the last night to weeks of wearing labor, with consequences at length upon his fund of spirits, and also plainly on his face. He felt, like Grandmoulin, that his battle was principally with De la Lande in the back of the county, cheering up his ranks.
About two o'clock Zotique drove over to Miséricorde alone. He did not return for an hour and a half, and when he did, his expression had altered to one of decided triumph, though still mysterious and silent Zotique, in fact, the evening before, when he drove to Miséricorde in Josephte's little gig, found what he had suspected to be the truth, that Benoit and Spoon had bought every vote of the hamlet; and paid for them, in the interest of Libergent; but he still believed it possible,—Benoit being incapacitated, and Spoon, he felt sure, not likely to turn up—to bend this plastic material the other way with the same tool, and casting, therefore, aside all delicate distinctions, he succeeded, by a reasonable hour in the evening, in obtaining once more the adhesion of the hotellier and most of the population, giving—for he had no Government funds like his opponents—his own personal notes for the amounts, and enjoining on the tavern-keeper to have the whole of the suffrages polled early. This was all he could do, as it was impossible for him to be present on the morrow, or to delegate any other person of Haviland's circle. His remaining anxiety was removed, when, on driving over, his investigations proved that the arrangement had been fully completed.
De Bleury only got the news in the morning, and Picault, who immediately hurried over at his suggestion, found himself too late, and his carefully prepared representation that "promissory notes representing an immoral compact were invalid" was of no use, while his invitation of the crowd to 'whiskeyblanc' only produced useless condolences. "C'est dommage, monsieur. If we could have known." He was not altogether displeased, however, to find what he considered the inevitable hole in Chamilly's professions of purity, and meeting the latter driving just outside the place, he wheeled his horse across the road and compelled an interview.
"You think you can do without Picault!" he laughed frankly.
"Let me pass, sir!" said Haviland, unwilling to put up with any nonsense.
"To take up the promissory notes of your friend?"
"Do you think sir, that I use your inventions? Let me pass, I tell you," and he rose with his whip.
"I have seen the cards, Haviland; take the game; let us be partners; what is the use of dissembling in this extraordinary manner?"
A flash of the whip,—a leap of the two animals,—Picault careening into the ditch, and Chamilly flying into Miséricorde.
CHAPTER XL.
HAVILAND REFUSES
"Nobleness still makes us proud"
—FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT
The election was Haviland's.
A great crowd gathered into Dormillière at the close of that long day, thickening and pouring in from the country around, and arriving by boats across the river, to hear the returns: and as Zotique read them in triumph from a chair at the door of the Circuit Court, and the issue, at first breathlessly uncertain, finally appeared, the cheering became frantic. Chamilly himself came out to them, an incomprehensible, determined aspect on his face, and amid deafening hurrahs, was seized and hurried on their shoulders across the square to the crier's rostrum, where he stood up before them.
And then and there took place the most unheard of incident, the most remarkable outcome of Haviland's lofty character, of which there as yet was record.
His voice can be heard distinct and clear over a perfect hush. What does he say? tell me,—have we really caught it correctly? Fact unique in political history; he was refusing the election on account of the frauds!
"Grandmoulin,"—was Picault's subsequent remark, "The young fool has courage. What a deep game he is playing. I tell you he has more talent than the whole of our side together except yourself—curse him."
"It demonstrates the unpractically of his methods!" said the burly
Montreal politician to Zotique, with self-satisfied disgust.
"No," returned Zotique, firmly, "If we had followed his methods it would have been far better. But nothing can make up for lack of intelligence: Sacré bleu. I ought to have had a better head than to leave these people to such as Cuiller and Benoit!"
Chamilly addressed firm words to the disappointed electorate: "I seek not my own cause, friends. It is yours in which I do this thing and do you, too, give all for country's honor. Lose not heart. Work on, like iron figures, receiving blows without feeling them. Be we young in our strength and hope, as Truth our mistress is perennial. Accept from me who according to the rule of faint hearts ought to be most crushed by our failure, the motto, "Encouraged by disaster!"
CHAPTER XLI.
FIAT JUSTITIA
"I wonder at you!—I wonder at you!" exclaimed Chrysler, pacing the drawing-room of the Manor-house, to his friend, "What will be the result of it?"
"Cher Monsieur," Haviland replied. "I have done my duty and what have I to do with events? What is Dormillière county and a year or two of the consequences of this election? I do not live in them or of them."
The face of the far-seeing god himself, whose statue stood once more near, could scarcely show less regret than the easy, indomitable countenance of Chamilly; yet that his nerves had been strained to a severe pitch, lines of exhaustion upon it clearly told, and his restless, reckless movements from one spot and position to another made his friend anxious. A raw wind storm had risen quickly from the east and whistled without. He advanced to the window and threw both its curtains wide apart, revealing under an obscured snatch of struggling moonlight, the heavens covered with rapid-moving clouds, and the poplars opposite bending their vague shapes beneath the wind,—the beginning of one of those storms which come up from the Gulf, and overrun the whole region for days.
"I should like to be on the River now," he remarked exultingly. Madame entered at the moment and heard him.
"Be quiet, Chamilly," chided the Seigneuresse.
"Alors, Alors," he said impatiently, as if casting about for something active to do, and left the room.
"Madame de Bois-Hebert," Chrysler said, "have you news from Mademoiselle
Josephte?"
"That young person," replied she, "has descended to the plane of her condition: I have no further interest in her."
But the devout lady sighed.
The Gulf storm lowered steadily and disagreeably all next day and the visitor saw nothing of Chamilly, who kept in his room until the evening. But there was one excitement which occupied everyone else's attention:
"Who do you think struck François?" Chrysler said to Zotique at the
Circuit Court House.
"The Bonhomme has tracked Spoon through every bush and bay on the coast, and has caught him getting aboard the steamboat at Petite Argentenaye," the Registrar replied.
A crowd came down the road. All the crowd were excited. They ran about a long waggon in which were on the first seat, the Honorable and Bonhomme; on the second a constable and prisoner handcuffed. Spoon, who cowered like a captured wild beast ready to whine with fright, was clapped into a private room and a stray Bleu flew off for Libergent to act as advocate. The crowd, soon uncomfortably larger, diverted itself by taking oratorical views of his guilt or innocence: but the prevailing opinion of the prisoner personally was expressed by one in an unfastidious proverb: "Grosse crache, grosse canaille."
Libergent, accompanied by De Bleury, came over at once, for he had a good deal at stake in seeing that Spoon's trial should lead to no unpleasant revelations or consequences to the party. Closeted not more than half an hour he came out and said publicly to l'Honorable, who took seat as Magistrate upon the Bench under the great lion-and-unicorn painting. "My client makes option of opening the investigation at once. He is not guilty of the charge and can clear himself."
The Bonhomme cried excitedly,—"It's false!" His wife joined him with a wild scream of disappointment. A murmuring ran about. "Silence!" shouted the constable.
Every one involuntarily obeyed; and Chrysler absorbed himself examining the articles taken from the prisoner's person.
The evidence was as soon disposed of as Libergent could have wished. Josephte gave her testimony to the appearance and surroundings of the injured man as she had found him. She could relate no circumstances that pointed to Spoon. The Bonhomme eagerly proffered his evidence. It was torn to tatters by the advocate: he had nothing to tell but rambling suspicions, and was told to stand down. It was discovered that none in fact had anything pertinent to say. Benoit was mad; François, unconscious; and Libergent triumphantly asked for the prisoner's immediate discharge.
The great doubt on the part of justice was, clearly, why did the prisoner disappear? But this was quickly resolved by witnesses who swore that Cuiller was entrusted with secret political business which necessitated absences and journeys in different parts of the country, and this, in the state of political affairs, was an obvious enough excuse.
Libergent pressed once again for the discharge.
"I must grant it," simply pronounced Mr. Genest.
Another scream pierced their ears. "Justice, oh God;" the old wife of Le Brun shrieked in trembling syllables. "They kill without hanging. I demand JUSTICE! Hear me, great God!" and her bent frame and wrinkled face writhed pitiably.
But it was done. Spoon descended with a sudden, wild grin and found himself free. "In a few hours," he probably thought obscurely, "I can be far on my road."
"Pardon me," said Chrysler, however, standing up, to the surprise of everybody. "Your Honor, I have another charge to bring against the prisoner, and I ask his re-arrest."
The Honorable made a sign to the constable to stay Cuiller.
"These bills," Chrysler said, holding out the bank notes which were found in the purse of Spoon, "are marked with the initials of François Le Brun's name. I am ready to charge the prisoner with having committed a larceny of money from François Le Brun on his journey from Montreal. I sustain it by these initials at the corners of bills just found on the prisoner's person. I am informed—"
"I object, your Honor," fairly shouted Libergent—"I object to any hearsay."
"What can you swear to of your own knowledge?" asked l'Honorable of
Chrysler, gently.
"To seeing these marks—"
"Which might be anything!" snapped Libergent.
"To hearing—"
"No hearsay, sir!"
"To having a conviction—"
"Upon no grounds whatever!—Your Honor, I press my just application for an immediate discharge."
"I cannot see that there is yet evidence enough," l'Honorable said courteously. "There are two charges, but both of them seem founded on vague suspicions which I cannot consider sufficient to detain the prisoner."
Libergent triumphantly glanced from Spoon to the audience.
At that moment, however, the man at his side rose up:—Ross de Bleury!
"If what Monsieur says is true," he exclaimed to the Honorable, throwing out his clenched hand,—"if these letters are found upon those notes, then I understand it. I can prove that this infernal, greasy, treacherous devil,—be he friend or traitor, or whatever he chooses to be, to the Bleu party or myself,—committed that despicable larceny and has wronged that poor young man. I was on the steamboat. I saw it. I saw him do it to his friend. Talking to the purser, I saw the act, but could not believe it a reality. On the parole of all my ancestors, I would never go back on a common thief, I would keep faith inviolate with a parricide, I have a secret sympathy with every brigand, but I have no place out of l'enfer itself for a traitor, Dieu merci."
"Swear the informant," said the Magistrate.
The picture at this instant of the frightened face of Spoon who collapsed into a seat by the Bar, of the excitement of the crowd, which had been gradually brought to a climax, the disgust of Libergent, relief of Chrysler, satisfaction of the little Bonhomme and his wife, the cynical roll of Zotique's eyes round the room, and serene, judicial face of the Honorable on the bench above, would have made the reputation of the greatest painter in Paris.
After all, Spoon was remanded for trial, and in due time, the Queen's Bench Court condemned him to the fullest penalty of the law for his murderous assault and larceny.
François meanwhile recovered, and was taken, pale and weak, but indescribably happy, in a carriage one morning beside Josephte to church, where the young Curé made her his faithful bride.
As for Benoit, "il est tout en campagne," they said. In less expressive terms, "his mind was hopelessly wandering."
* * * * *
To return to our current day however; in the evening Chamilly came into the drawing room with some more manuscript, which he handed to Chrysler.
"Here is the rest of the story I have been writing," said he, "take it sir and may it amuse you a little; it is the key to the rest. I am going out on the River." And he went-out of the Manoir door into the storm.
The manuscript proceeded as follows:
BOOK III.
BOOK OF ENTHUSIASMS (CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER XLII.
QUINET'S CONTRIBUTION
"O, skyward-looking, fleet-winged soul,
Earth hath no name for thine ideal flower!"
—MARY MORGAN.
For a night and a day after my talk with my father; I was a fool. Swelling names of ancestors rang proudly in my ears, and I shudder to think how easily I might have ended in a genealogist.
"Salut, Milord de Quinet."
"Bon soir, Chamilly," replied he, soberly.
"Aha, thou melancholy friend, the liver again, eh?".
We were strolling along the half illuminated Grosvenor street under the elms. The dim, substantial mansions in their grounds and trees, pleased my foreign eyes and I was glad to find the city of Alexandra able to vie with the great cities of the world, and I thought of her as near, and for, the moment, could not understand the humor of Quinet.
"You don't seem to know," said he, "at least, I thought I would tell you—that Miss Grant has gone away,"—he stopped and looked at me earnestly.—"I sympathise with you."
"Away!" I caught my breath. My spirits sank with disappointment. Alas! Heaven seemed to ordain that my passion for her should never become, a close communion, but only keep this light, ethereal touch upon me.
And so Quinet knew. "I do not ask you how: evidently you have known it all along?" (It was the first time I had been spoken to about my love for her, and it made me feel peculiarly.) "Mon ami, Quinet, tu es heureux ne pas aimer. Que penses tu de ma chère?"
"Go on, my friend Chamilly; be steadfast, for thou could'st not have chosen a sweeter, lovelier, holier divinity. O my friend, be steadfast and be happy. Yes, as thou hast said, I have known this."
Quinet was diverting our steps along up leading streets which tended towards the Mountain, and soon we reached the head of one, where a wall met us.
"This way," he said, striking aside into a field which formed part of the Park. "Adieu, civilization of street lights!" and he pressed up into a dark grove where I stumbled after, and next, under the twilight of a sky full of stars, could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost. We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the precipice's edge where the trees draw back and allow in daytime a wide view of the city and surrounding country, and we both stood breathless there in the dimness, in front of a sight bewilderingly grand enough to of itself take one's breath away.
Above were the radiant constellations. Below, between a belt of weird horizon and the dark abyss at our feet, the city shone, its dense blackness mapped out in stars as brilliant and myriad-seeming as those overhead,—a Night above, a Night below! Once before had I looked from that crag upon Montreal, in a memorable sunset hour, and remembered my impression of its beauty. Below, the scarped rock fell: the tops of trees which grew up the steep face lost themselves, lower, in a mass of grove that flourished far out, and besieged the town in swollen battalions and columns of foliage. Half overwhelmed by this friendly assault, the City sat in her robes of grey and red, proud mistress of half-a continent, noble in situation as in destiny. A hundred spires and domes pointed up, from streets full of quaint names of saints and deeds of heroes. The pinnacled towers of Notre Dame rose impressively in the distance. Past ran the glorious St. Lawrence, with its lovely islands of St. Helen's and the Nuns'.
Now, however, it seemed no longer a place upon earth at all. It was a living spirit. Quiet as the sky itself, its bright eyes looked far upward, and it was communing, in the lowliness of Nature, with the constellations.
"This is Life!" cried Quinet, who had hitherto been excited with suppressed feeling. "The vast winds come in to us from Ether. Night hides all that is common, and sprinkles the dark-blue vault with gold-dust; the planets gleam far and pure amidst it, and Space sings his awful solo."
"All is one mighty Being. There he moves, the Great Creature, his crystal boundlessness encompassing his countless shapes. He faces us from every point. His God-soul looks through to us. He rises at our feet. He surrounds us in ourselves; speaks and lives in us. Is he not resplendent, wondrous?"
"We are out of the world of vain phantoms, Chamilly! We are above the chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names, business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny us that the centre of the systems is immeasurably off there in Pleiades! What fools we are. We follow trifles we value at the valuation of idiots; we cherish mean ideas; we believe contracted doctrines; we do things we are ashamed of; dropping at last like the animals, with alarm that we die."
"Look, off into the heart of It! the heart of It! beyond there!" he exclaimed, stretching his arm. "Forget our courtyard! Nay, returning there, let us remember that this infinite ocean is above it—a boundless sea beneath and around, an unknown universe within. Take in this scene and feel the rich thrills of its majesty stir you. You are of it; you came out of it; it is your mother, father, lover; it will never let you die; that heart of it to which your utmost straining cannot pierce, was once and will again be known to you. Its beauty caresses your soul from another world, and it is Love Divine which moves those stars.[J] Your own sweet passion, Chamilly, is the child of that divine Love, and in it you mount towards the heavens, and yearn as by inspiration, for a mysterious ideal existence? The poets and romancers lightly say of it "a divine power:" they think they say a metaphor—a lie; but I tell you it is true! May it assist you to live the life of the universe."
[Footnote J: Dante—Divina Commedia.]
"Each man," he cried, "who pursues his highest is a prophet! Ever there is an inward compulsion in our race to press on, and we hear the heroes of the front as they fall, crying 'Forward, forward, forward, forward, forward!'"
While he spoke, for he said much besides, many of the lights were disappearing, we seemed to be being left alone, and the church-towers of the city chorussed the hour of ten.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HAVILAND'S PRINCIPLE
The final step in the progression of influences was, strange to say, a dream. Our residence was then on Grosvenor street,—a Florid Gothic one after the model of Desdemona's House in Venice. My own little room was fitted up in a Moorish fashion.
After the scene with Quinet on Prospect Point, I sat up till a late hour, for I found a letter from Grace, telling jocularly of their journey just commenced in the delightful Old World, and seriously of Alexandra's ambitions. I sat thinking with my arms folded on the table till I fell asleep. Then I felt at first that I was lifted up on the Mountain again, and leaving that presently, was carried out into space far away among the stars. Phosphorescent mists and cloud masses passed over the region, and among these appeared various figures, the last of which was, that of a certain old Professor of ours.
The most apparently dissimilar things come to us in dreams. A lecture of the Professor's had once greatly impressed me: "Conscience is Reason," he said. "To do a right thing is to do simply the reasonable thing; to do wrong is to do what is unreasonable.—
"Now think," he said, "what this means."
What could such words have to do with a dream?
"What is Duty?" he proceeded, "Whence the conviction, the mysterious fact, that whatever my inclination may be, I ought to do some act—ought to do it though the cup of pleasure be dashed from the lifting hand, though a loved face most pale, though the stars in their high courses reel, and the gulfs of perdition smoke,—why is it that the grave, unalterable 'Ought' must still demand reverence?"
His voice rose.
"Immanuel Kant!"
The familiar name caught my ear, and I attended.
"To him Heaven gave it to solve the problem. Think what Reason is! Be men for once and attend to one deep matter! Think what Reason is!—the divinest part of us, and common with the Divine, as with every Intelligence; speaking not of the voice of the individual, but one sound everywhere to all. It is more truth than metaphor to name it the VOICE OF GOD."
In my dream, the Professor repeated, as if with mystic significance, the cry: "Conscience is Reason!" and as these words vaguely reached me, his figure dissolved into a rolling cloud, which grew at once into a shape of giant form, and addressed me in echoing tones: "The unalterable Ought! the unalterable Ought!" reverberating from the depths and heights.
I awoke at the sound, and collecting my energies—for I had been half-asleep,—stretched out my hand to my note-book, looked up the lecture, and with the words swaying before me, read sleepily:—
"Leave us Reason in any existence;—strip us of sight, sound, touch, and all the external constitution of nature, clothe us with whatever feelings and powers, place us in whatever scenes may come—but gift us with this universal faculty, our power of knowing truth. Otherwise, with rudder lost, we are dreamers on a drifting wreck, and where were the Divine One, and this harmonious architecture of the universe, and all things trustworthy, proportioned, eternal, exalting?"
"Leave us Reason, and, children of God, we may from any point start out to see Our Father, His voice indicating from within the paths to Him which somewhere surely lie near to everywhere. Leave us Reason, and, brothers of men, we recognize that each Intelligence is of value equal to ourselves, and more precious than aught else can be, and we perceive the due relations of an orderly world."
"The voice within in simple dignity commands"—
But the lines swam before me: I could not hold my head up: the Moorish room expanded to the height and magnificence of a Hall of Magic, the dream of starry space returned and the pure lights circled in it singing to me in chorus. Space itself seemed to become the veiled countenance of a Mysterious Power, which "half-revealed and half-concealed" itself on every hand, and out of the midst of a dark-blue sky, appeared the form and face of Alexandra, like a Princess-Madonna, smiling, O so earnestly and kindly.
I started, and woke again. The Professor's notes were still under my eyes, and I read the words, "Lose yourself and live as if you were one of the others. Exalted on this pinnacle you are prepared for any existence; you have learnt your path through eternity, and the world and its vicissitudes may sweep by you like winds past a statue."
As I slowly thought over all the dream, and comprehended its remarkable character, I conceived it as a revelation.
"The highest things,—I have found them at last!" I exultantly cried, in a final enthusiasm—"the total subjection of self and obedience of the whole life to Reason! What shall I care more for events and opinions, or any matter that but concerns myself and a fleeting world! I will seek in my actions ever the greater, finer, nobler thing for all, and the rule will be aim sufficient!"
"I saw that DUTY is the Secret of the World."
It was only a question to choose my largest, finest, noblest field of work for all. Difficulties disappeared, and the great aim soon appeared before me of the cultivation of the national spirit.
The nation must found and shape its own work on the same deep idea.