Chapter III: Book TWO: The Seigniory of Lamoral (1)

I

"Richelieu--Richelieu-en-Bas."

The captain of the local freight and passenger boat, that had taken six hours to make its trip down the St. Lawrence from Montreal, pointed encouragingly to the low north bank of the river. I looked eagerly in that direction.

"Richelieu-en-Haut is back there," with a sweep of his hand northwards, "six miles back on the railroad."

The little steamer was running, at that moment, within twenty feet of the low bank which, I saw at once, had been converted into a meandering village street, built up only on one side. A double row of trees shaded both houses and highway. We were within confidential speaking distance of the few people I saw in the street, and apparently on intimate terms with the front rooms of the tiny houses. We sailed past the market-place square, past the long low inn with double verandas, past the post office, and drew to the landing-place which the steamer saluted.

This salute was the signal for the appearance of what appeared to me the entire population of the place. There were people under the lindens, people at the doors and open windows, people in boats rowing towards us; one man was poling a scow in which were a cow and two horses. There were men with handcarts, boys with baskets, old women and young girls, all talking, gesticulating freely.

The handcarts were drawn up to the landing-place; the steamer was made fast to an apology for a mooring-post; the gangway heaved up. Several sheep on the lower deck were run down it by a forced method of locomotion, their keepers hoisting their hind legs, and steering them wheelbarrow fashion into the street where some children attempted to ride them. All about me I heard the chatter of Canadian French, not a word of which I understood.

A ponderous antiquated private coach, into which were harnessed two fine shaggy-fetlocked horses,--I learned afterwards these were Percherons, with sires from Normandy,--stood in the street directly opposite the boat; a small boy was holding their heads. I wondered if that were my "Seigniory coach"!

My trunk was literally shovelled out down the gangway, and I followed. I stood on the landing-place and looked about me. I was, in truth, in that other country for, oh, the air! It was like nothing I had ever known! So strong, so free, so soft, as if it were blowing straight from the great Northland, over unending virgin plains, through primeval unending forests, that the dwellers on this great water highway might enjoy something of its primal purity and strength.

I was filling my lungs full of it and thinking of my instructions to ask for Mrs. Janet Macleod, when a tall man, loosely jointed but powerfully built, made his way to me through the crowd.

"I take it you 're the gal Mis' Macleod 's lookin' fer?"

It was simply the statement of a foregone conclusion, but the drawling nasal intonation, the accent and manner of speech, told me that it was native to my northern New England, where I have lived two-thirds of my life; it was the speech of my own people. I laughed; I could not have helped it. It was such a come-down from my high ideas of "Seigniory retainers" of foreign birth, with which romance I had been entertaining myself ever since I had fed my fancy on what the New York Public Library yielded me.

"Yes, I 'm the one, Marcia Farrell. Is this our coach?"

The man gave me a keen glance from under his bushy eyebrows; indeed, he looked sharply at me a second time. If he thought I was quizzing him he was much mistaken.

"Yes, that's our'n,"--I noticed he placed an emphasis on the possessive,--"and we 'd better be gettin' along 'fore dark; the steamer's late. You and the coach ain't just what you 'd call a perfect fit--nor I could n't say as you was a misfit," he added, as he opened the door for me to get in. "Guess Mis' Macleod was expectin' somebody with a little more heft to 'em; you don't look over tough?" The statement was put in the form of a question. "But your trunk 'll fill up some."

He hoisted it endwise with one hand on to the front seat; took his place beside it; gathered up the reins, and said to the boy:

"Let 'em go, Pete. You get up behind."

But the horses did not go. They snorted, threw up their heads, flourished their long tails, one of them showed his heels, and both cavorted to the wild delight of the assembled crowd.

Some emphatic words from the coachman, and judicious application of the whiplash, soon showed the young thoroughbreds what was wanted of them, and they trotted slowly, heavily, but steadily, down the road beside the river, Pete, who was behind on a curious tail extension, shouting to the small boys as he passed them.

After the horses had settled down to real work, my driver turned to me.

"Did you come through last night clear from New York?"

"Yes, and I 'm glad to get here; this air is wonderful."

"Thet 's what they all say when they strike Canady fer the fust time. I take it it's your fust time?"

"Yes, I 'm a stranger here."

"Speakin' 'bout air--I can't see much difference 'twixt good air most anywheres. Take it, now, up in New England, up north where I was raised, you can't get better nowheres. Thet comes drorrin' through the mountains and acrosst the Lake, an' it can't be beat."

I made no reply for I feared he would ask me if I knew "New England up north".

He turned to look at me, evidently surprised at my short silence. He saw that I was being jolted about on the broad back seat, owing to the uneven road.

"Sho! If I did n't have the trunk, I 'd put you here on the front seat 'longside of me to kinder steady you."

"How far is it to the Seigniory of Lamoral, Mr.--?" I ventured to ask, hoping for a flood of information about the Seigniory and its occupants.

"Call me Cale," he said shortly; "thet 's short fer Caleb, an' what all the Canucks know me by. Mis' Macleod, she ain't but jest come to it; she balked consider'ble at fust, but it rolls off'n her tongue now without any Scotch burr, I can tell you! You was askin' 'bout the Seigniory of Lamoral--I dunno jest what to say. The way we 're proceedin' now it's 'bout an hour from here, but with some hosses it might take a half, an' by boat you can make it as long as you 're a mind ter."

"It's a large place?"

"Thet depends on whether you 're talkin' 'bout the old manor or the Seigniory; one I can show you in ten minutes, t' other in about three days." He turned and looked at me again with his small keen gray eyes.

"Where was _you_ raised?" He spoke carelessly enough; but I knew my own. He was simulating indifference, and I put him off the track at once.

"I was born in New York City."

"Great place--New York."

He chirrupped to the colts, and we drove for the next fifteen minutes without further conversation.

The boat, owing to heavy freight, was an hour late in leaving Montreal, and two hours longer than its usual time, in discharging it at a dozen hamlets and villages along the St. Lawrence. In consequence, it was sunset when we left the landing-place, and the twilight was deepening to-night, as we turned away from the river road and drove a short distance inland. Once Caleb drew rein to light a lantern, and summon Pete from the back of the coach to sit beside him and hold it.

It grew rapidly dark. Leaning from the open upper half of the coach door, I could just see between the trees along the roadside, a sheet of water.

"Hola!" Cale shouted suddenly with the full power of his lungs. "Hola--hola!"

It was echoed by Pete's shrill prolonged "Ho--la-a-a-a-a!"

"Ho-la! Ho!" came the answer from somewhere across the water. Cale turned and looked over his shoulder.

"Thet 's the ferry. We ferry over a piece here; it's the back water of a crick thet makes in from the river 'long here, fer 'bout two mile." He turned into a narrow lane, dark under the trees, and drove to the water's edge.

By the flare of the lantern I could see a broad raft, rigged with a windlass, slowly moving towards us over the darkening waters. Another lantern of steady gleam lighted the face of the ferryman. It took but a few minutes to reach the bank; the horses went on to the boards with many a snort and much stamping of impatient hoofs. Pete took his place at their heads.

"_Marche!_"

We moved slowly away towards the other bank. There was no moon; the night air was crisp with coming frost; an owl hooted somewhere in the woods.

We were soon on the road again, as ever beneath trees. It seemed to me as if we were turning to the river again. I asked Cale about it.

"You 've hit it 'bout right, in the dark too. We foller back a quarter of a mile, an' then we 're there."

That quarter of a mile seemed long to me.

"Here we are," said Cale, at last.

I looked out. I could see the long low outlines of a house showing dimly white through the trees, for there were trees everywhere. A flaring light, as from a wood fire, illumined one window.

We drew up at a broad flight of low steps. A door into a lighted passageway was opened. I saw there were at least four people in it; one, a woman in a white cap, came out on the upper step.

"Have you brought Miss Farrell, Cale?" she said.

"Yes, Mis' Macleod, fetched her right along; but the boat was good three hours late.--Pete, open the door; I 'll hold the hosses."

I went up the steps, not knowing what to say, for the mere inflection of her voice, the gentle address, the prefix "Miss" to my name, told me intuitively that I was with gentle people, and my service with them was to be other than I fancied.

II

"I hope you will soon feel at home in the old manor." With these words I was made welcome. Mrs. Macleod led the way into the house.

"Jamie," she said to a young man, or youth, I could not tell which, "this is Miss Farrell. My son," she added, turning to me.

"Call me Marcia," I said to her. She smiled as if pleased.

"You will be feeling very tired after your long journey--and I 'm thinking jolly hungry after coming up in the old boat; that was mother's doings."

"Now, Jamie--!" she spoke in smiling protest.

O Jamie, Jamie Macleod! Your thin bright eager face was in itself a welcome to the old manor of Lamoral.

"I 'm not tired, but I confess to having a good appetite; this Canada air would make an angel long for manna," I said laughing.

"Wouldn't it though--oh, it's great!" he responded joyfully. "Angelique, here, will help you out in that direction--she's our cook; Angelique, come here." He gave his command in French.

The short thickset French Canadian of the black-eyed-Susan type, came forward, with outstretched hand, from the back of the passageway; there was good friendship in her hearty grip.

"And Marie will take charge of you till supper time," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling; "Jamie is apt to run the house at times because he can speak with the servants in their own tongue."

"Now, mother!" It was Jamie's turn to protest.

Mrs. Macleod spoke to the little maid, who was beaming on me, in halting French.

"Do you speak French?" she asked me.

"No, I can read it, that 's all."

"Oh, well, with that you can soon understand and speak it; my Scotch tongue is too old to be learning new tricks; fortunately I understand it a little. Marie will take you to your room."

Marie looked on me with an encouraging smile, and led the way up stairs through a wide passageway, down three steps into another long corridor, and opened a door at the end. She lighted two candles and, after some pantomime concerning water, left me, closing the door behind her.

And this was my room. I looked around; it took immediate possession of me in spirit--a new experience for me and a wholly pleasing one.

There were two windows in one end; the walls were sloping. I concluded it must be in the gable end of some addition to the main building. The walls were whitewashed; the floor was neatly laid with a woven rag carpet of peculiar design and delicate coloring; the cottage bedroom set was painted dark green. There was a plain deal writing table with writing pad and inkstand, and a dressing table on which stood two white china candlesticks. Counterpane, chair cushions, and window hangings were of beautiful old chintz still gay with faded paroquets and vines, trees, trellises, roses and numerous humming-birds, on a background of faded crocus yellow.

There was a knock at the door. On my using one of the few words in French at my command, "Entrez," Marie burst in with delighted exclamations and a flood of unintelligible French. But I gathered she was explaining to me Pierre who followed her, cap in one hand, and in the other, the handle of my trunk which he was dragging behind him. This was evidently Pierre, father, in distinction from Pierre, son.

"Big Pete and little Pete," I translated for their benefit; whereupon Marie clapped her hands and Peter the Great came forward man fashion to shake hands before he placed my trunk. As the two spoke together I heard the name "Cale".

"What a household!" I said to myself after they had gone, and while I was doing over my hair. "I wonder if there are any other members? And what is my place in it going to be?"

It kept me guessing until I had made myself ready for supper.

Soon there was another knock. Marie's voice was heard; her tongue loosed in voluble expression of her evident desire to conduct me down stairs to the dining-room.

"Here are more of us!" was Jamie Macleod's exclamation, as I entered the long low room. Four fine dogs--he told me afterwards they were Gordon setters--rose slowly from the rug before the fireplace. "But they 're Scotch and need no introduction. Come here, comrades!"

The four leaped towards me; snuffed at me with evident curiosity; licked my hands and were about to spring on me, but a word from their master sent them back to the rug.

He showed me my place at the long narrow table; drew out the chair for his mother and, when she was seated, spoke to the dogs who, with perfect decorum, sedately settled themselves on their haunches in twos, one on each side of Mrs. Macleod at the head of the table, one on each side of her son at her right. They looked for all the world like the Barye bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum! After all, I could not get rid of all the associations, nor did this one bring with it anything but pleasure, that the great city had yielded me this much of instruction.

I was looking at the dogs and about to speak, when I noticed that Mrs. Macleod had bent her head and folded her hands. I caught Jamie looking at me out of the corner of his eye. For the first time in my life I heard "grace" said at a table. I felt myself grow red; I was embarrassed. Jamie saw my confusion and began to chat in his own bright way.

"I asked mother if she had written definitely what we 'd asked you up here for into the wilds of Canada."

"Now, Jamie! You will be giving Miss--Marcia," she corrected herself, "to understand I asked her here under false pretence. To tell the truth, I did n't quite see how to explain myself at such a distance." She spoke with perfect sincerity. "Moreover, Doctor Rugvie told me that Mrs. Beaseley was absolutely trustworthy, and I relied on her--but you don't know Doctor Rugvie?"

"Of him, yes; I saw him once in the hospital."

"So you 've been in the hospital too?"

It was Jamie who put that question, and something of the eager light in his face faded as he asked it.

"Yes, last spring; I was there ten weeks."

"Then you know," he said quite simply, and looked at me with inquiring eyes.

Why or how I was enabled to read the significance of that simple statement, I cannot say; I know only in part. But I do know that my eyes must have answered his, for I saw in them a reflection of my own thought: We both, then, have known what it is, to draw near to the threshold of that door that opens only outward.

"You don't indeed look strong; I noticed that the first thing," said Mrs. Macleod.

"Oh, but I am," I assured her; "you will see when you have work for me. I can cook, and sew--and chop wood, and even saw a little, if necessary."

Mrs. Macleod looked at me in absolute amazement, and Jamie burst into a hearty laugh. It was good to hear, and, without in the slightest knowing why, I laughed too--at what I did not know, nor much care. It was good to laugh like that!

"And to think, mother, that you told me to come down heavy on the 'strong and country raised'! Oh, this is rich! I wrote that advertisement, Miss Far--"

"Please call me Marcia."

"May I?" He was again eager and boyish.

"Why not?" I said. He went on with his unfinished sentence.

"--And I pride myself that I rose to the occasion of mother's command to make it 'brief but explicit'."

"Poor girl, you 've had little chance to hear anything explicit from me as yet." Mrs. Macleod smiled, rather sadly I thought. "But you shall know before you go to bed. I could n't be so thoughtless as to keep you in suspense over night."

"Oh, I can wait," I said; "but what I want to know, Mr. Macleod--"

"Please call me Jamie," he said, imitating my voice and intonation.

"May I?" I replied, mimicking his own. Then we both fell to laughing like two children, and it seemed to me that I felt what it is to be young, for the first time in my life. The four dogs wagged their tails, threshing the floor with them like flails and keeping time to our hilarity; Mrs. Macleod smiled, almost happily, and Marie came in to see what it was all about.

"What do you want to know?" he said at last, mopping the tears from his eyes with his napkin.

"Why you advertised your mother as 'an elderly Scotchwoman'?"

"Because that sounded safe."

Again we laughed, it seemed at almost nothing. The dogs whined as if wanting to join in what fun there was; the fire snapped merrily on the hearth, and the large coal-oil lamp, at the farther end of the long table, sent forth a cheerful light from under its white porcelain shade, and showed me the old room in all its simple beauty.

Overhead, the great beams and the ceiling were a rich mahogany color with age. The sides were panelled to the ceiling with the same wood. Between the two doors opening into the passageway, was a huge but beautifully proportioned marble chimney-piece that reached to the beams of the ceiling. The marble was of the highest polish, white, pale yellow, and brown in tone. Above the mantel, it formed the frame of a large canvas that showed a time-darkened landscape with mounted hunters. The whole piece was exquisitely carved with the wild grape vine--its leaves and fruit.

On each side were old iron sconces. Above the two doors were the antlers of stags. The room was lighted by four windows; these were hung with some faded chintz, identical in pattern and color with that in my bedroom; they were drawn. I wondered, as I looked at this beauty of simplicity, what the other rooms in the house would show. I noticed there was no sideboard, no dresser; only the table, and heavy chairs with wooden seats, furnished the room.

The food was wholesome and abundant. I found myself wondering that I could eat each mouthful without counting the cost.

"I 'll stay here with the dogs and smoke," Jamie said, as we left the table.

We crossed the passageway, which I noticed was laid with flagging and unheated, to the room opposite the dining-room.

Here again, there were the wood ceilings and panelled walls, the latter painted white. The great chimney-piece was like its fellow in the dining-room; only the carvings were different: intricate scrollwork and fine groovings. There was a canvas, also, in the marble frame, but it was in a good state of preservation; it showed a walled city on a height and a river far below. I wondered if it could be Quebec.

The room was larger than the other, but much cosier in every way. There were a few modern easy chairs, an ample old sofa--swans carved on the back and arms--a large library table of black oak with bevelled edges, also beautifully carved; and around the walls of the room, in every available space, were plain low bookshelves of pine stained to match the table. On the floor were the same woven rugs of rag carpet, unique of design and beautiful in coloring--dark brown, pale yellow, and white, with large squares marked off in narrow lines of rose. The furniture, except for the sofa which was upholstered in faded yellow wool damask, was covered with flowery chintz like that in the dining-room, and at the windows were the same faded yellow hangings. A large black bear skin rug lay before the hearth. There were no ornaments or pictures anywhere. On the mantel were two pots of flourishing English ivy. A stand of geraniums stood before one of the four windows.

There were sconces on each side of the chimney-piece, but of gilt bronze. Each was seven-branched, and it was evident that Marie had just lighted all fourteen candles.

Mrs. Macleod drew her chair to the hearth, and I took one near her.

III

"It is a good time to speak of some matters between ourselves; Jamie will not be coming in for an hour at least." She turned and looked at me steadily.

"I don't know how much or how little you know of this place, and perhaps it will be best to begin at the beginning. Mrs. Beaseley wrote me you were born in the city of New York."

"Yes; twenty-six years ago next December."

"So Mrs. Beaseley wrote, or rather her daughter did for her. She said you were an orphan."

"Yes." I answered so. How could I answer otherwise knowing what I did? But I felt the blood mount to my temples when I stated this half truth.

"You say you do not know Doctor Rugvie?"

"No; only of him."

"I wish you did." (How could she know that my wish to see him and know him must be far stronger than hers!)

"He will be coming out here later on in the winter--are you cold?" she asked quickly, for I had shivered to cover an involuntary start.

"No, not at all; but I think it must be growing colder outside."

"It is. Cale said we might have heavy frost or snow before morning. You will find the changes in temperature very sudden and trying here in spring and autumn. About Doctor Rugvie; he is a good man, and a great one in his profession. We made his acquaintance many years ago in Scotland, in my own home, Crieff. He had lodgings with us for ten weeks, and since then he has made us proud to be counted among his friends."

She rose, stirred the fire and took a maple stick from a large wood-basket.

"Let me," I said, taking it from her.

"You really don't look strong enough."

"Oh, but I am; you 'll see."

"By the way, don't let my son do anything like this. He is often careless and over confident, and he must not strain himself--he is under strict orders." She was silent for a moment then went on:

"My son is not strong, as you must see." She looked at me appealingly, as if hoping I might dispute her statement; but I could say nothing.

"A year ago," she spoke slowly, as if with difficulty, "he was in the Edinboro' Hospital for five months; he inherits his father's constitution, and the hemorrhages were very severe. Doctor Rugvie came over to see him, and advised his coming out here to Canada to live as far as possible in the pine forests. He has been away all summer. He is to go away again next year with one of the old guides.

"I want you to remain with me as companion and assistant here in the house; the service is large and, as you will soon find," she added with a smile, "extremely personal. They are interested in us and our doings, and we are expected to reciprocate that interest. It will be a comfort to Jamie to know you are with me, and that I am not alone in this French environment." She interrupted herself to say:

"Did Mrs. Beaseley tell you anything about this place? You can speak with perfect freedom to me. We have no mysteries here." She smiled as if she read my thoughts.

"She told me she knew nothing of the place, except that Doctor Rugvie had hired a farm in Canada with some good buildings on it, and that he intended to use it for those who might need to be built up in health."

"She has stated it exactly. My son and I are the first beneficiaries--only, this is not the farm."

"Not the farm!" I exclaimed. She looked amused at my surprise. "What is it then? Do tell me."

"There is very little to tell. A friend of Doctor Rugvie's, an Englishman who was with him for a week in Scotland while he was with us, is owner of the Seigniory of Lamoral; it is his, I think, by inheritance, although I am not positive; and this is the old manor house. The estate is very large, but has been neglected; I have understood it is to be cultivated; some of it is to be reforested and the present forest conserved. He will be his own manager and will make his home here a great part of the year. Mean while, he has installed us here in his absence, through Doctor Rugvie, of course, and given over the charge of house and servants to Jamie and me."

"And what is the owner's title?"

"He has none that I know of. The real 'Seignior' and 'Seignioress' live in Richelieu-en-Bas in the new manor house--I say 'new', but that must be seventy-five years old. This is only a part of the original seigniory."

"I don't understand these seigniories, and I tried to read up about them before I came here."

"It is very perplexing--these seigniorial rights and rents and transferences. I don't make any pretence of understanding them."

"Are the farm buildings occupied now?"

"No; Doctor Rugvie wants to attend to those himself. It is his recreation to make plans for this farm, and he will be here himself to see that they are begun and carried out right. He tells me he has always loved Canada."

"And what am I to do for you? I want to begin to feel of a little use," I said half impatiently.

"You are doing for me now, my dear." (How easily Delia Beaseley's name for me came from the "elderly Scotchwoman's" lips!) "Your presence cheers Jamie; the young need the young, and belong to the young--"

"But," I protested, "I am not young; I am twenty-six."

"And Jamie is twenty-three. But when you laughed together to-night, you both might have been sixteen. It did me good to hear you; this old house needs just that--and I can't laugh easily now," she added. I heard a note of hopelessness in her voice.

How lovely she was as she sat by the fire in the soft radiance of candle light! "Elderly"!--She could not be a day over fifty-seven or eight. The fine white cap rested on heavy, smoothly parted hair; the figure was round to plumpness; the dress, not modernized, became her; her voice was still young if a little weary, and her brown eyes bright, the lids unwrinkled.

"Do you know Delia Beaseley well? Doctor Rugvie says she is a fine woman."

"She is noble," I said emphatically; "I feel that I know her well, although I have seen her only a few times."

"Is she a widow?"

The door opened before I could gather my wits to answer. I felt intuitively that I could not say to this Scotchwoman, that Delia Beaseley was neither widow nor wife. I welcomed the sudden inrush of all four dogs and Jamie behind them, with the smell of a fresh pipe about him.

"I positively must have my second short pipe here with you. I kept away in deference to the new member of the family." He flourished his pipe towards me. "I always smoke here, don't I, mother?"

"In that case, I will stay in my room after supper unless you continue to smoke your first, second, and third--"

"Only two; Doctor Rugvie won't allow me a third--"

"Doctor Rugvie is a tyrant, and I 've said the same thing before," I declared firmly.

"Now, look here, Marcia," he said solemnly, "we will call a halt right now and here." He settled his long length in the deep easy chair on the other side of the hearth, refilled and relighted his pipe. "Doctor Rugvie is my friend, my very special friend; whoever enters this house, enters it on the footing of friendship with all those who are my friends--"

"Hear, hear! Another tyrant," I said, turning to his mother who was enjoying our chaff.

"--Whose name is legion," he went on, ignoring my interruption. "I'll begin to enumerate them for your benefit. There are the four dogs, Gordon setters of the best breed--and Gordon's setters in fact." He made some pun at which his mother smiled, but it was lost on me. "They 're not mine, they 're my friend's, and that amounts to the same thing when he 's away."

"And who is this friend of dogs and of man?"

"He? Guy Mannering, hear her! Why there's only one 'he' for this place and that's--"

"Doctor Rugvie?"

"Doctor Rugvie!" he repeated, looking at me in unfeigned amazement; then to his mother:

"Have n't you told her yet, mother?"

"I doubt if I mentioned his name--I had so many other things to say and think of." She spoke half apologetically.

"The man who owns this house, Miss Farrell,"--he was speaking so earnestly and emphatically that he forgot our agreement,--"the man who owns these dogs, the lord of this manor, such as it is, and everything belonging to it, lord of a forest it will do your eyes and lungs and soul good to journey through, the man who is master in the best sense of Pete and little Pete, of Angelique and Marie, of old Mere Guillardeau, of a dozen farmers here on the old Seigniory of Lamoral, my friend, Doctor Rugvie's friend and friend of all Richelieu-en-Bas, is Mr. Ewart, Gordon Ewart--and you missed my pun! the first I've made to-day!--and I hope he will be yours!"

"Well, I 'll compromise. If he will just tolerate me here for your sakes, I 'll be his friend whether he is mine or not--for I want to stay."

I meant what I said; and I think both mother and son realized, that under the jesting words there was a deep current of feeling. Mrs. Macleod leaned over and laid her hand on mine.

"You shall stay, Marcia; it will not depend on Mr. Ewart, your remaining with us. When the farm is ready, Doctor Rugvie will place us there, and then I shall need your help all the time."

Again, as at the station with Delia Beaseley's blessing ringing in my ears, I felt the unaccustomed tears springing in my eyes. Jamie leaned forward and knocked the ashes from his pipe; he continued to stare into the fire.

"And who are the others?" I asked unsteadily; my lips trembled in spite of myself.

"The others? Oh--," he seemed to come back to us from afar, "there is Andre--"

"And who is Andre?"

"Just Andre--none such in the wide world; my guide's old father, old Mere Guillardeau's brother, old French voyageur and coureur de bois; it will take another evening to tell you of Andre.-- Mother," he spoke abruptly, "it's time for porridge and Cale."

"Yes, I will speak to Marie." She rose and left the room by a door at the farther end.

"Remark those fourteen candles, will you?" said Jamie, between puffs.

"I have noticed them; I call that a downright extravagance."

"I pay for it," he said sententiously; then, with a slight flash of resentment; "you need n't think I sponge on Ewart to the extent of fourteen candles a night."

I laughed a little under my breath. I knew a little friction would do him no harm.

"And when those fourteen candles burn to within two inches of the socket, as at present, it is my invariable custom, being a Scotsman, to call for the porridge--and for Cale, because he is of our tongue, and needs to discourse with his own, at least once, before going to bed. I say a Scotsman without his nine o'clock porridge is a cad."

"Any more remarks are in order," I said to tease him.

"You really must know Cale--"

"I thought I made his acquaintance this afternoon."

He laughed again his hearty laugh. "I forgot; he drove you out. We did n't send Pete because we thought you might not understand his lingo. But you must n't fancy you know Cale because you 've seen him once--oh, no! You 'll have to see him daily and sometimes hourly; in fact, you will see so much of him that, sometimes, you will wish it a little less; for you are to understand that Cale is omnipresent, very nearly omnipotent here with us, and indispensable to _me_. You will accept him on my recommendation and afterwards make a friend of him for your own sake."

"Who is he?"

"Cale?--He 's just Cale too. His name is Caleb Marstin; 'hails', as he says, from northern New England. I have noticed he does n't care to name the locality, and I respect his reticence; it's none of my business. He says he has n't lived there for more than a quarter of a century and has no relations. He can tell you more about forests, lumber and forestry, in one hour than a whole Agricultural College. He has been for years lumbering in northern Minnesota and across the Canadian border. He 's here to help reforest and conserve the old forest to the estate; he 's--in a word, he 's my right hand man."

"Is Mr. Ewart lord of Cale too?"

At my question, Jamie's long body doubled up with mirth.

"Have n't seen each other yet and don't know each other. Gordon Ewart is n't apt to acknowledge any one as his master, especially in the matter of forestry, and Cale never does; result, fun for us when they do know each other."

"How did you happen to get him here?"

"Oh, a girl I know, who visits in Richelieu-en-Bas, said her father, who is a big lumber merchant on the States' border, knew of good men for the place. Ewart had told me that this was my first business, to get a man for the place; so I wrote to him, and he replied that Cale was coming east in the spring and he had given him my name. That's how."

Mrs. Macleod came in, followed by Marie with steaming porridge, bowls and spoons on a tray; Cale was behind her. Jamie looked up with a smile.

"Cale, this is Miss Farrell, the new member of our Canadian settlement. I take it you have spoken with her before."

There was no outstretched hand for me; nor did I extend mine to him. We were of one people, Cale and I: northern New Englanders, and rarely demonstrative to strangers. We are apt to wait for an advance in friendship and then retreat before it when it is made, for the simple reason that we fear to show how much we want it! But I smiled up at him as he took his stand by the mantel, leaning an elbow on it.

"Yes, Cale and I have made each other's acquaintance." I noticed that when I looked up at him and smiled, he gave an involuntary start. I wondered if Jamie saw it.

"Yes, we had some conversation, such as 'twas, on the way. 'T ain't every young gal would ride out inter what you might call the unbeknownst of a seigniory in Canady with an old feller like me."

A slow smile wrinkled his gaunt whiskered cheeks, and creased a little more deeply the crowsfeet around the small keen grey eyes that, I noticed, fixed themselves on me and were hardly withdrawn during the five minutes he stood by the mantel gulping his porridge.

After finishing it, he bade us an abrupt good night and left.

"What's struck Cale, mother?" Jamie asked as soon as he had left the room; "this is the first time I 've ever known his loquacity to be at a low ebb. It could n't be Marcia, could it?"

"I don't think Marcia's presence had anything to do with it; he is n't apt to be minding the presence of any one. I think he has something on his mind."

"Then he 'd better get it off; I don't like it," said Jamie brusquely; "here they come--"

In came Angelique and Marie, Pierre the Great, and Pierre the Small, to bid us good night; it was their custom; and after the many "bonne-nuits" and "dormez-biens", they trooped out. We took our lighted candlesticks from the library table where Marie had placed them; Jamie snuffed out the fourteen low-burning lights in the sconces, drew ashes over the embers, put a large screen before the fire, and we went to our rooms.

Mine greeted me with an extra degree of warmth. Marie had made more fire; the air was frosty. I drew apart the curtains and looked out. There was only the blackness of night beyond the panes. I drew them to again; unlocked my trunk to take out merely what was necessary for the night, undressed and went to bed.

I must have lain there hours with wide open eyes; there was no sleep in me. Hour after hour I listened for a sound from somewhere; there was absolute silence within the manor and without. I had opened my window for air, and, as I lay there wide awake, gradually, without reason, in that intense silence, the various nightly street sounds of the great city, five hundred miles to the southward, began to sound in my ears; at first far away, then nearer and nearer until I heard distinctly the roar of the elevated, the multiplied "honk-honk" of the automobiles, the rolling of cabs, the grating clamor of the surface cars, the clang of the ambulance, the terrific clatter of the horses' hoofs as they sped three abreast to the fire, the hoarse whistle of tug and ferry; and, above all, the voices of those crying in that wilderness.

Again I felt that awful burden, that blackness of oppression, which was with me for weeks in the hospital--the result of the intensified life of the huge metropolis and the giant machinery that sustains it--and, feeling it, I knew myself to be a stranger even in the white walled room in the old manor house of Lamoral.

It must have been long, long after midnight when I fell asleep.

IV

There was a soft white light on walls and ceiling when I awoke. I recognized it at once: the reflection from snow. I drew aside both curtains and looked out.

"Oh, how beautiful!" I exclaimed, drawing long deep breaths of the fine dry air.

It was the so-called "feather-snow" that had fallen during the night. It powdered the massive drooping hemlock boughs, the spraying underbrush, the stiff-branched spruce and cedars that crowded the tall pines, overstretching the steep gable above my windows.

Just below me, about twenty feet from the house, was the creek, a backwater of the St. Lawrence, lying clear, unruffled, dark, and mirroring the snow-frosted cedars, hemlocks, and spraying underbrush. Across its narrow width the woods came down to the water, glowing crimson, flaunting orange, shimmering yellow beneath the light snow fall. Straight through these woods, and directly opposite my windows, a broad lane had been cut, a long wide clearing that led my eyes northward, over some open country, to the soft blue line of the mountains. I took them to be the Laurentides.

From a distance, in the direction of the village, came the sudden muffled clash of bells; then peal followed peal. The sun was fully an hour high. As I listened, I heard the soft _drip_, _drip_, that sounded the vanishing of the "feather-snow".

I stood long at the window, for I knew this glory was transient and before another snowfall every crimson and yellow leaf would have fallen.

While dressing, I took myself to task for the mood of the night before. Such thoughts could not serve me in my service to others. I was a beneficiary--Mrs. Macleod's word--as well as Jamie and his mother, and I determined to make the most of my benefits which, in the morning sunshine, seemed many and great. Had I not health, a sheltering room, abundant food and good wages?

I could not help wondering whose was the money with which I was to be paid. Had it anything to do with Doctor Rugvie's "conscience fund"? Did Mrs. Macleod and Jamie bear the expense? Or was it Mr. Ewart's?

"Ewart--Ewart," I said to myself; "why it's the very same I heard in the train."

Then and there I made my decision: I would write to Delia Beaseley that, as Mrs. Macleod said Doctor Rugvie would be here sometime later on in the winter, I would wait until I should have seen him before asking him for my papers.

"I shall ask her never to mention my name to him in connection with what happened twenty-six years ago; I prefer to tell it myself," was my thought; "it is an affair of my own life, and it belongs to me, and to no other, to act as pioneer into this part of my experience--"

Marie's rap and entrance with hot water, her voluble surprise at finding me up and dressed, and our efforts to understand each other, diverted my thoughts. I made out that the family breakfasted an hour later, and that it was Marie's duty to make a fire for me every morning. I felt almost like apologizing to her for allowing her to do it for me, who am able-bodied and not accustomed to be waited on.

I took rain-coat and rubbers, and followed her down stairs. She unbolted the great front door and let me out into the early morning sunshine. I stood on the upper step to look around me, to take in every detail of my surroundings, only guessed at the night before.

Maples and birch mingled with evergreens, crowding close to the house, filled the foreground on each side. In front, an unkempt driveway curved across a large neglected lawn, set with lindens and pines, and lost itself in woods at the left. Between the tree trunks on the lawn, at a distance of perhaps five hundred feet, I saw the broad gleaming waters of the St. Lawrence broken by two long islands. Behind the farther one I saw the smoke of some large steamer.

I looked up at the house. It was a storey and a half, long, low, white. The three large windows on each side of the entrance were provided with ponderous wooden shutters banded with iron. There were four dormers in the gently sloping roof and two large central chimneys, besides two or three smaller ones in various parts of the roof. Such was the old manor of Lamoral.

A path partly overgrown with bushes led around the house; following it, I found that the main building was the least part of the whole structure. Two additions, varying in length and height, provided as many sharp gables, and gave it the inconsequent charm of the unexpected.

Beyond, in a tangle of cedars and hemlocks, were some low square out-buildings with black hip-roofs. Still following the path, that turned to the left away from the outbuildings, I found myself in the woods that from all sides encroached upon the house. It was a joy to be in them at that early hour. The air was filled with sunshine and crisp with the breath of vanishing snow. The sky was deep blue as seen between the interlocking branches, wet and darkened, of the crowding trees.

Before me I saw what looked to be another out-building, also white, and evidently the goal for this path through the woods. It proved to be a small chapel, half in ruins; the door was time-stained and barred with iron; the window glass was gone; only the delicate wooden traceries of the frame were intact. I mounted a pile of building stone beneath one of the windows, and by dint of standing on tiptoe I could look over the window ledge to the farther end of the chapel. To my amazement I saw that it had been, in part, a mortuary chapel. Several slabs were lying about as if they had been pried off, and the deep stone-lined graves were empty. The place fairly gave me the creeps; it was so unexpected to find this reminder in the hour of the day's resurrection.

What a wilderness was this Seigniory of Lamoral! And yet--I liked it. I liked its wildness, the untrammelled growth of its trees, underbrush and vines; the dignified simplicity of its old manor that matched the simple sincerity of its present inmates. I felt somehow akin to all of it, and I could say with truth, that I should be glad to remain a part of it. But I recalled what Mrs. Macleod said about our removal to the farm, and that remembrance forbade my indulging in any thoughts of permanency.

"Stranger I am in it, and stranger I must remain to it, and at no distant time 'move on,' I suppose." This was my thought.

A noise of soft runnings-to-and-fro in the underbrush startled me. I jumped down from the pile of stones and started for the house, but not before the dogs found me and announced the fact with continued and energetic yelpings. Jamie greeted me from the doorway.

"Good morning! You 've stolen a march on me; I wanted to show you the chapel in the woods. You will find this old place as good as a two volume novel."

"What a wilderness it is!"

"That's what Cale is here for. He is only waiting for Ewart to come to bring order out of this chaos. I hope you noticed that cut through the woods across the creek?"

"Yes, it's lovely; those are the Laurentians I see, are n't they?"

"You 're right. The cut is Cale's doing. He said the first thing necessary was to let in light and air, and provide drainage. But he won't do much more till Ewart comes--he does n't want to."

"When is Mr. Ewart coming?"

"We expect him sometime the last of November. He was in England when we last heard from him--here's Marie; breakfast is ready." He opened the door to the dining-room and Mrs. Macleod greeted me from the head of the table.

I loved the dining-room; the side windows looked into a thicket of spruce and hemlock, and from the front ones I could see under the great-branched lindens to the St. Lawrence.

After breakfast Mrs. Macleod showed me what she called the "offices", also the large winter kitchen at the end of the central passageway, and the method by which both are heated: a range of curious make is set into the wall in such a way that the iron back forms a portion of the wall of the passageway.

"We came out here early in the spring and found this arrangement perfect for heating the passageway. Angelique has moved in this morning from the summer kitchen; she says the first snowfall is her warning. I have yet to experience a Canadian winter."

She showed me all over the house. It was simple in arrangement and lacked many things to make it comfortable. Above, in the main house, there were four large bedrooms with dormer windows and wide shallow fireplaces. The walls were whitewashed and sloping as in my room. The furniture was sparse but old and substantial. There were no bed furnishings or hangings of any kind. All the rooms were laid with rag carpets of beautiful coloring and unique design.

"Jamie and I have rooms in the long corridor where yours is," said Mrs. Macleod; "it's much cosier there; we actually have curtains to our beds, which seems a bit like home."

I was looking out of one of the dormer windows as she spoke, and saw little Pete on the white Percheron, galloping clumsily up the driveway. He saw me and waved a yellow envelope. I knew that little yellow flag to be a telegram. A sudden heart-throb warned me that it might bring some word that would shorten my stay in this old manor, and banish all three to Doctor Rugvie's farm.

A few minutes afterwards, we heard Jamie's voice calling from the lower passageway:

"Mother, where are you?--Oh, you 're there, Marcia!" he said, as I leaned over the stair rail. "Here 's a telegram from Ewart, and news by letter--no end of it. Come on down."

"Come away," said Mrs. Macleod quickly. I saw her cheeks flush with excitement. On entering the living-room we found Jamie in high feather. He flourished the telegram joyously.

"Oh, I say, mother, it's great! Ewart telegraphs he will be here by the fifteenth of November and that Doctor Rugvie will come with him. And here 's a letter from him, written two weeks ago, and he says that by now all the cases of books should be in Montreal, plus two French coach horses at the Royal Stables. He says Cale is to go up for them. He tells me to open the cases, and gives you free hand to furbish up in any way you see fit, to make things comfortable for the winter."

"My dear boy, what an avalanche of responsibility! I don't know that I feel competent to carry out his wishes." She looked so hopelessly helpless that her son laughed outright.

"And when and where do I come in?" I asked merrily; "am I to continue to be the cipher I 've been since my arrival?"

"You forgot Marcia, now did n't you, mother?"

"I think I did, dear. Do you really think you can attempt all this?" she asked rather anxiously.

"Do it! Of course I can--every bit, if only you will let me."

"Hurrah for the States!" Jamie cried triumphantly; "Marcia, you're a trump," he added emphatically.

Mrs. Macleod turned to me, saying half in apology:

"I really have no initiative, my dear; and when so many demands are made upon me unexpectedly, I simply can do nothing--just turn on a pivot, Jamie says; and the very fact that I am a beneficiary here would be an obstacle in carrying out these plans. It is so different in my own home in Crieff."

I heard the note of homesickness in her voice, and it dawned upon me that there are others in the world who may feel themselves strangers in it. My heart went out to her for her loneliness in this far away land of French Canada.

"Well, so am I a beneficiary; so is Cale and the whole household; and if only you will let me, I 'll make Mr. Ewart himself feel he is a beneficiary in his own house," I retorted gayly. "And as for Doctor Rugvie, we 'll see whether his farm will have such attractions for him after he has been our guest."

Mrs. Macleod laid her hand on my shoulder and smiled, saying with a sigh of relief:

"If you will only take the generalship, Marcia, you will find in me a good aide-de-camp."

Jamie said nothing, but he gave me a look that was with me all that day and many following. It spurred me to do my best.

V