The Road to Frontenac. Merwin Samuel
of birds, with the breath of the leaves and the far-away crackle and plunge of larger animals through the undergrowth. A chipmunk, with inquisitive eyes, sat on the root of a knotted oak, but he whisked away when Menard and the canoemen stepped into the shallow water. Overhead, showing little fear of the canoe and of the strangely clad animals within it, scampered a family of red squirrels, now nibbling a nut from the winter’s store, now running and jumping from tree to tree, until only by the shaking of the twigs and the leaf-clusters could one follow their movements.
The maid leaned an elbow on the bale which Danton had placed at her back, and rested her cheek on her hand. They were under the drooping branches of an elm that stood holding to the edge of the bank. Well out over the water sat one of the squirrels, his tail sweeping above his head, nibbling an acorn, and looking with hasty little glances at the canoe. She watched him, and memories came into her eyes. There had been squirrels on her father’s seignory who would take nuts from her hand, burying them slyly under the bushes, and hurrying back for more.
Danton came wading to the side of the canoe to help her to the bank, but she took his hand only to steady herself while rising. Stepping over the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swaying branch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water the ground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and ragged hickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, and save under the heaviest of the trees the ground was green with short, coarse grass. Danton took a hatchet from the canoe, and trimmed a fir tree, heaping armfuls of green boughs at the foot of an oak near the top of the slope. Over these he threw a blanket. The maid came slowly up the hill, in response to his call, and with a weary little smile of thanks she sank upon the fragrant couch. She rested against the tree trunk, gazing through the nearer foliage at the rushing river.
For the two days she had been like this,–silent, shy, with sad eyes. And Danton,–who could no more have avoided the company of such a maid than he could have left off eating or breathing or laughing,–Danton, for all his short Paris life (which should, Heaven knows, have given him a front with the maids), could do nothing but hang about, eager for a smile or a word, yet too young to know that he could better serve his case by leaving her with her thoughts, and with the boundless woods and the great lonely spaces of the river. Menard saw the comedy–as indeed, who of the party did not–and was amused. A few moments later he glanced again toward the oak. He was sharpening a knife, and could seem not to be observing. Danton was sitting a few yards from the maid, with the awkward air of a youth who doubts his welcome. She still looked out over the water. Menard saw that her face was white and drooping. He knew that she had not slept; for twice during the preceding night, as he lay in his blanket, he had heard from under the overturned canoe, where she lay, the low sound of her sobbing.
Menard walked slowly down the slope, testing the knife-edge with his thumb, his short pipe between his teeth. He sheathed his knife, lowered his pipe, and called:–
“Guerin.” The two men, who were bringing wood to the fire, looked up. “Where has the Father gone?”
Guerin pointed around the base of the hill. “He went to the woods, M’sieu.”
“With a bundle,” added Perrot.
Menard walked around the hill, and after a little searching found the priest, kneeling, in a clearing, before the portrait of Catharine Outasoren, which he had set against a tree. His brushes and paints were spread on the ground before him. He did not hear Menard approach.
“Oh,” said the captain, “you brought the picture!”
The priest looked up over his shoulder, with a startled manner.
“I myself have stripped down to the lightest necessaries,” said Menard, with a significant glance at the portrait.
The priest lowered his brush, and sat looking at the picture with troubled eyes. “I had no place for it,” he said at last, hesitatingly.
“They didn’t take it at the College, eh?”
Father Claude flushed.
“They were very kind. They felt that perhaps it was not entirely completed, and that–”
“You will leave it at Montreal, then, at the Mission?”
“Yes,–I suppose so. Yes, I shall plan to leave it there.”
Menard leaned against a tree, and pressed the tobacco down in his pipe.
“I have been doing some thinking in the last few minutes, Father. I’ve decided to make my first call on you for assistance.”
“Very well, Captain.”
“It is about the maid. Have you noticed?”
“She seems of a sober mind.”
“Don’t you see why? It is her father’s losses, and this journey. She is taking it very hard. She is afraid, Father, all the time; and she neither sleeps nor eats.”
“It is naturally hard for such a child as she is to take this journey. She has had no experience,–she does not comprehend the easy customs and the hard travelling of the frontier. I think that in time–”
Menard was puffing impatiently.
“Father,” he said, “do you remember when Major Gordeau was killed, and I was detailed to bring his wife and daughter down to Three Rivers? It was much like this. They fretted and could not sleep, and the coarse fare of the road was beneath their appetites. Do you remember? And when it came to taking the rapids, with the same days of hard work that lie before us now, they were too weak, and they sickened, the mother first, then the daughter. When I think of that, Father, of the last week of that journey, and of how I swore never again to take a woman in my care on the river, I–well, there is no use in going over it. If this goes on, we shall not get to Frontenac in time, that is all. And I cannot afford to take such a chance.”
The priest looked grave. The long struggle against the rapids from Montreal to La Gallette had tried the hardihood of more than one strong man.
“It is probable, my son, that the sense of your responsibility makes you a little over-cautious. She is a strong enough child, I should say. Still, perhaps the food is not what she has been accustomed to. I have noticed that she eats little.”
“Perrot is too fond of grease,” Menard said. “I must tell him to use less grease.”
“If she should be taken sick, we could leave her with someone at Montreal.”
“Leave her at Montreal!” exclaimed Menard. “When she breaks down, it will be in the rapids. And then I must either go on alone, or wait with you until she is strong enough to be carried. In any case it means confusion and delay. And I must not be delayed.”
“What have you in mind to do?”
“We must find a way to brighten her spirits. It is homesickness that worries her, and sorrow for her father, and dread of what is before and around her. I’ll warrant she has never been away from her home before. We must get her confidence,–devise ways to cheer her, brighten her.”
“I can reason with her, and–”
“This is not the time for reasoning, Father. What we must do is to make her stop thinking, stop looking backward and forward. And there is Danton; he can help. He is of an age with her, and should succeed where you and I might fail.”
“He has not awaited the suggestion, Captain.”
“Yes, I know. But he must,–well, Father, it has all been said. The maid is on our hands, and must be got to Frontenac. That is all. And there is nothing for it but to rely on Danton to help.”
The priest looked at his brushes, and hesitated. “I am not certain,” he said, “she is very young. And Lieutenant Danton,–I have heard, while at Quebec,–”
Menard laughed.
“He is a boy, Father. These tales may be true enough. Why not? They would fit as well any idle lieutenant in Quebec, who is lucky enough to have an eye, and a pair of shoulders, and a bit of the King’s gold in his purse. This maid is the daughter of a gentleman, Father; she is none of your Lower Town