A Cry in the Wilderness Part 8

"Richelieu--Richelieu-en-Bas."

The captain of the local freight and pa.s.senger 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 s.h.a.ggy-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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed 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 windla.s.s, 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.