Cameron of Lochiel. Aubert de Gaspé Philippe
Jules, "I believe it as if I saw it with my own eyes; were it otherwise it would show a plentiful lack of skill or good-will on the part of your peticoated cooks. It is delightfully primitive, that Scotch cookery of yours. With a few handfuls of oatmeal sodden in cold water – since you have neither wood nor coal in your country – you can make an excellent soup at little cost and with no great expenditure of culinary science, and feast your guests as well in the night as in the daytime. It is quite true that, when some distinguished personage seeks your hospitality – which often happens, since Scotland is loaded down with enough coats-of-arms to crush a camel – it is true I say, that you set before him, in addition to your oatmeal soup, the head, feet, or nice, juicy tail of a sheep, with salt for sauce; the other parts of the animal never seem to grow in Scotland."
Lochiel contented himself with glancing at Jules over his shoulder and repeating:
"'Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve' – "
"What's that?" exclaimed Jules, in assumed indignation; "you call me a Myrmidon, a Dolopian – me, the philosopher! And, moreover, my worthy pedant, you abuse me in Latin – you who so murder the accent with your Caledonian tongue that Virgil must squirm in his grave! You call me a Myrmidon – me, the geometrician of my class! You remember that the Professor of Mathematics predicted that I should be another Vauban – "
"Yes, indeed," interrupted Archie, "in recognition of your famous perpendicular line, which leaned so much to the left that all the class trembled lest it should fall and crush its base; seeing which, our professor sought to console you by predicting that your services would be required in case of the reconstruction of the Tower of Pisa."
Jules struck a tragic attitude and cried:
"'Tu t'en souviens, Cinna! et veux m'assassiner.'
"You are going to stab me upon the king's highway, beside this mighty St. Lawrence, untouched by all the beauty of nature which surrounds us – untouched by yon lovely cascade of Montmorency, which the habitants call 'The Cow,' a title very much the reverse of poetic, but which, nevertheless, expresses well enough the exquisite whiteness of the stream which leaps from its bosom like the rich and foaming flow from the milch-cow's udder. You are going to stab me right in sight of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described! Heartless wretch! will nothing make you relent – not even the sight of poor José here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young, as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?"
"Do you know," interrupted Archie, "you are at least as remarkable in poetry as you are in geometry?"
"Who can doubt it?" answered Jules. "No matter, my perpendicular made you all laugh and myself most of all. You know, however, that that was only another trick of that scamp De Chavigny, who had stolen my exercise and rolled up another in place of it, which I handed in to the teacher. You all pretended not to believe me, since you were but too glad to see the trickster tricked."
José, who ordinarily took little part in the young men's conversation, and who, moreover, had been unable to understand what they had just been talking about, now began to mutter under his breath:
"What a queer kind of a country that, where the sheep have only heads, feet, and tails, and not even a handful of a body! But, after all, it is none of my business; the men who are the masters will fix things to suit themselves; but I can't help thinking of the poor horses!"
José, who was a regular jockey, had a most tender consideration for these noble beasts. Then, turning to Archie, he touched his cap and said:
"Saving your presence, sir, if the gentry themselves eat all the oats in your country, which is because they have nothing better to eat, I suppose, what do the poor horses do? They require to be well fed if they do much hard work."
The young men burst out laughing. José, a little abashed by their ridicule, exclaimed:
"Excuse me if I have said anything foolish. One may make mistakes without being drunk, just like Master Jules there, who was telling you that the habitants call Montmorency Falls 'The Cow' because their foam is white as milk. Now, I have a suspicion that it is because they bellow like a cow in certain winds. At least that is what the old bodies say when they get chattering."
"Don't be angry, old boy," answered Jules, "you are probably quite right. We were laughing because you thought there were horses in Scotland. The animal is unknown in that country."
"What! no horses, sir? What do the folks do when they want to travel?"
"When I say no horses," answered D'Haberville, "you must not understand me too literally. They have an animal resembling our horses, but not much taller than my big dog Niger. It lives in the mountains, wild as our caribous, and not altogether unlike them. When a Highlander wants to travel, he sounds his bagpipe; all the villagers gather together and he unfolds to them his project. Then they scatter through the woods, or rather through the heather, and after a day or two of toil and tribulation they succeed, occasionally, in capturing one of these charming beasts; then, after another day or two, if the brute is not too obstinate, and if the Highlander has enough patience, he sets out on his journey, and sometimes even succeeds in coming to the end of it."
"Well, I must say," retorted Lochiel, "you are a pretty one to be making fun of my Highlanders! You have good right to be proud of this princely turn-out of your own! It will be hard for posterity to believe that the high and mighty lord of D'Haberville sends for his son and heir in a sort of dung-cart without wheels! Doubtless he will send some outriders on ahead of us, in order that nothing shall be lacking in our triumphal approach to the manor of St. Jean Port Joli!"
"Well done, Lochiel! you are saved, brother mine," cried Jules. "A very neat home thrust. Claws for claws, as one of your Scottish saints exclaimed one day, when he was having a scrimmage with the devil."
José, during this discussion, was scratching his head disconsolately. Like Caleb Balderstone, in The Bride of Lammermoor, he was very sensitive on all subjects touching his master's honor.
"What a wretched fool I am!" he cried in a piteous voice. "It is all my fault. The seigneur has four carryalls in his coach-house, of which two are brand new and varnished up like fiddles, so that I used one for a looking-glass last Sunday. So, then, when the seigneur said to me yesterday morning, 'Get ready, José, for you must go to Quebec to fetch my son and his friend Mr. de Lochiel; see that you take a proper carriage' – I, like a fool, said to myself that when the roads were so bad the only thing to take was a sled like this! Oh, yes, I'm in for a good scolding! I shall get off cheap if I have to do without my brandy for a month! At three drinks a day," added José, "that will make a loss of ninety good drinks, without counting extras. But it's all the same to me; I'll take my punishment like a man."
The young men were greatly amused at José's ingenious lying for the honor of his master.
"Now," said Archie, "since you seem to have emptied your budget of all the absurdities that a hair-brained French head can contain, try and speak seriously, and tell me why the Isle of Orleans is called the Isle of the Sorcerers."
"For the very simple reason," answered Jules, "that a great many sorcerers live there."
"There you begin again with your nonsense," said Lochiel.
"I am in earnest," said Jules. "These Scotch are unbearably conceited. They can't acknowledge any excellence in other nations. Do you think, my dear fellow, that Scotland has the monopoly of witches and wizards? I would beg you to know that we too have our sorcerers; and that two hours ago, between Point Lévis and Beaumont, I might as easily as not have introduced you to a very respectable sorceress. I would have you know, moreover, that on the estate of my illustrious father you shall see a witch of the most remarkable skill. The difference is, my dear boy, that in Scotland you burn them, while here we treat them in a manner fitting their power and social influence. Ask José if I am not telling the truth?"
José did not fail to confirm all he said. In his eyes the witches of Beaumont and St. Jean Port Joli were genuine and mighty sorceresses.
"But to speak seriously," continued Jules, "since you would make a reasonable man of me, nolens volens, as my sixth-form master used to say when he gave