A Little Girl in Old Quebec Part 10

"Is it far to France?"

"Two months' or so sail."

"On a river?"

"Oh, on a great ocean. We must look at the Sieur's chart. Out of sight of any land for days and days."

"I should feel afraid. And if you did not know where the land was?"

"But the sailor can tell by his chart."

What a wonderful world it was. She had supposed Quebec the greatest thing in it. And now she knew so much about France and the beautiful city called Paris, where the King and Queen lived, and ladies who went gowned just like Madame, the first time she saw her. And there was an England. M. Ralph had been there and seen their island empire, which could not compare with France. She had a vague idea France was all the rest of the world.

What days they were, for the weather was unusually fine. Now and then they paused to explore some small isle, or to get fresh game. As for fish, in those days the river seemed full of them. So many small streams emptied into the St. Lawrence. Berries were abundant, and they feasted to their hearts' content. The Indians dried them in the sun for winter use.

Tadoussac was almost as busy as Quebec. As the fur monopoly had been in part broken up, there were trappers here with packs of furs, and several Indian settlements. It was Champlain's idea which Giffard was to work up, to enlist rival traders to become sharers in the traffic, and enlarge the trade, instead of keeping in one channel.

Madame and the little girl, piloted by Wanamee, visited several of the wigwams, and the surprise of the Indian women at seeing the white lady and the child was great indeed. Rose was rather afraid at first, and drew back.

"They take it that you are the wife of the great father in France, that is the King," translated Wanamee, "because you have crossed the ocean.

And you must not blame their curiosity. They will do you no harm."

But they wanted to examine my lady's frock and her shoes, with their great buckles that nearly covered her small foot. Her sleeves came in for a share of wonder, and her white, delicate arms they loaded with curious bracelets, made of sh.e.l.ls ground and polished until they resembled gems. Then, too, they must feast them with a dish of Indian cookery, which seemed ground maize broken by curiously arranged millstones, in which were put edible roots, fish, and strips of dried meat, that proved quite too much for miladi's delicate stomach. The child had grown accustomed to it, as Lalotte sometimes indulged in it, but she always shook her head in disdain and frowned on it.

"Such _pot au feu_ no one would eat at home," she would declare emphatically.

They were loaded with gifts when they came away. Beautifully dressed deerskins, strips of work that were remarkable, miladi thought, and she wondered how they could accomplish so much with so few advantages.

The child had been a great source of amus.e.m.e.nt to all on shipboard. Her utter ignorance of the outside world, her quaint frankness and innocence tempted Giffard to play off on her curiosity and tell wonderful tales of the mother country. And then Wanamee would recount Indian legends and strange charms and rites used by the sages of the Abenaquis in the time of her forefathers, before any white man had been seen in the country.

Then their homeward route began, the pause at the Isle d'Orleans, the narrowing river, the more familiar Point Levis, the frowning rocks, the palisades, and the fort. All the rest was wildness, except the clearing that had been made and kept free that no skulking enemy should take an undue advantage and surprise them by a sudden onslaught.

The Sieur de Champlain came down to meet them. Rose was leaping from point to point like a young deer. It was no longer a pale face, it had been a little changed by sun and wind.

"Well, little one, hast thou made many discoveries?"

"Oh, yes, indeed. I would not mind going to France now. And we have brought back some such queer things; beautiful, too. But we did not like some of the cooking, miladi and I, and Quebec is dearer, for it is home," and her eyes shone with delight.

"Home! Thanks, little maid, for your naming it on this wise," and he smiled down in the eager face as he turned to greet Madame.

She was a little weary of the wildness and loneliness of dense woods and great hills and banks of the river, that roared and shrieked at times as if ghost-haunted. Wanamee's stories had touched the superst.i.tious threads of her brain.

M. Giffard took the Sieur's arm and drew him a trifle aside. Destournier offered his to the lady and a.s.sisted her up the rocky steep. Many a tragedy would pa.s.s there before old Quebec became new Quebec, with famous and heroic story.

She leaned a little heavily on his arm. "The motion of the ship is still swaying my brain," she remarked, with a soft laugh. "So, if I am awkward, I crave your patience. Oh, see that child! She will surely fall."

Rose was climbing this way and that, now hugging a young tree growing out of some crevice, then letting it go with a great flap, now s.n.a.t.c.hing a handful of wild flowers, and treading the fragrance out of wild grapes.

"She is sure-footed like any other wild thing. I saw her first perched upon that great gray rock yonder."

"The daring little monkey! I believe they brave every danger. I wonder if we shall ever learn anything about her. The Sieur has so much on hand, and men are wont to drop the thread of a pursuit or get it tangled up with other things, so it would be too much of a burthen to ask him.

And another year I shall go to Paris myself. If she does not develop too much waywardness, and keeps her good looks, I shall take her."

"Then I think you may be quite sure of a companion."

Wanamee had preceded them and thrown open the room to the slant rays of western sunshine. Madame sank down on a couch, exhausted. The Indian girl brought in some refreshments.

"Stay and partake of some," she said, with a winsome smile. "I cannot be bereft of everybody."

But the child came in presently, eager and full of news that was hardly news to her, after all.

"Pani is here," she exclaimed. "Madame Dubray and her husband have gone with the trappers. They took Pani. He said he would run away. They kept him two days, and tied him at night, but he loosened the thongs and ran nearly all night. Then he has hidden away, for some new people have taken the house. And he wants to stay here. He will be my slave."

She looked eagerly at my lady.

"Thou art getting to be such a venturesome midge that it may be well to have so devoted an attendant. Yet I remember he left thee alone and ill and hungry not so long ago."

Rose laughed gayly.

"If he had not left me I could not have taken the courage to crawl out.

And no one else might have come. He wanted to see the ships. And Madame Dubray whipped him well, so that score is settled," with a sound of justice well-paid for in her voice.

"We will see"--nodding and laughing.

"Then can I tell him?"

"The elders had better do that. But there will be room enough in Quebec for him and us, I fancy," returned miladi.

Rose ran away. Pani was waiting out on the gallery.

"They will not mind," she announced. "But you must have some place to sleep, and"--studying him critically from the rather narrow face, the bony shoulders, and slim legs--"something to eat. Mere Dubray had plenty, except towards spring when the stores began to fail."

"I can track rabbits and hares, and catch fish on the thin places in the rivers. Oh, I shall not starve. But I'm hungry."

The wistful look in his eyes touched her.

"Let us find Wanamee," she exclaimed, leading the way to the culinary department.

Miladi had been surprised and almost shocked at the rough manner of living in this new France. The food, too, was primitive, lacking in the delicacies to which she had been used, and the manners she thought barbarous. But for M. Destournier and the courtesy of the Sieur she would have prayed to return at once.

"Wait a little," pleaded Laurent. "If there is a fortune to be made in this new world, why should we not have our share? And I can see that there is. Matters are quite unsettled at home, but if we go back with gold in our purses we shall do well enough."

Then the child had appealed to her. And it was flattering to be the only lady of note and have homage paid to her.

So the children sought Wanamee, and while Pani brought some sticks and soon had a bed of coals, Wanamee stirred up some cakes of rye and maize, and the boy prepared a fish for cooking. He was indeed hungry, and his eyes glistened with the delight of eating.

"It smells so good," said Rose. "Wanamee, bring me a piece. I can always eat now, and a while ago I could not bear the smell of food."

"You were so thin and white. And Mere Dubray thought every morning you would be dead. You wouldn't like to be put in the ground, would you?"