Honor Edgeworth; Or, Ottawa's Present Tense Part 17

The men near the door, as they rose in silence to make the pa.s.sage free, looked at each other in mute wonder, and threw enquiring glances after the figures of the strangers as they crossed the threshold of the inn.

They were five tall, well built, good looking young men, with all the traits of city life about them. Had a whole army of soldiers invaded the "Traveller's Inn" at this moment it could scarcely surprise the spectators more than did the appearance of these young fellows.

They enquired of the thunderstruck proprietor whether he had rooms to accommodate them for a few days, and he had just nerve enough to tell them that if they could manage with three rooms, that many were at their service.

Appearing quite satisfied with this arrangement, they had supper ordered.

It was not in immediate readiness, so while the life was being hurried out of the maid in the kitchen, the new-comers went outside and fell in with the crowd at the door step.

One of the new arrivals, the most striking looking of all, and with whom we will have to deal more particularly afterwards, addressed the reserved sages on behalf of all the rest.

"I suppose we surprised you this evening," said he, laughing, and throwing one leg over a vacant soap box, just as any of the natives would have done, "but our being here surprises ourselves as much as it does you. We come from the McGill College in Montreal, and we are going far into the depths of your forest here to look for a few week's sport."

The group of listeners appeared a little more reconciled to the intrusion by this explanation of it, and after a few moments of awkward silence, old Joe Bentley, who was near the speaker, said:

"Welcome, gentlemen! Ye're welcome to the village, and good sport ye can promise yerselves if ye'll go the right way about it."

"Then we must hope," put in a second of the students, "that some of you who know will not be above giving us a word of advice."

"The Lord forbid," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed old Bentley in a most serious tone. "And the very best spot in the country is the spot we were talkin' of as ye came along. It's out by the 'Sleepy Cottage.' If ye can get that strange Frenchman to leave you through his grounds, ye never had such shooton'

an' fishin as there is a couple of miles up on the other side of them."

"Who is the strange Frenchman?" asked the first speaker, as he felt in his vest pocket for a match to light his cigar.

"He'm. Give us an easier one than that to answer," said Martin Doyle, a crude, suspecting farmer, who smoked sullenly on the end of a bench.

"How is dacent people, who lived here all their lives, to know who them invaders is that comes in on people with their quare notions and ways, never showing the daylight to the child G.o.d gave 'em till she's a fine young woman on their hands, and never spakin' a word to other folk, as if honest men wasn't their betters any day."

The new-comers smiled from one to another. It is so consistent with the character of these country people to guard against and suspect, rather than trust unknown people who come among them wrapped in a mystery of any sort.

"This is strange," said another student in a tone calculated to elicit all the information about the "invader," that the rustics were willing to give.

"Well," said Joe Bentley, in a more christian-like tone, "people has no business talkin' only of what they know, but we all know that some fourteen or fifteeen years ago, this man that lives in Sleepy Cottage now, kem here with his wife and baby, and took up living in the country.

Off and on since that day we've seen the old man himself around the village, but Madame kept close enough from that day till the day of her death which happened about three years ago, when she was buried in the graveyard over, and that was when we first saw the girl ever since the day they brought her a tiny thing in their arms from off the cars. Dan Sloan, and some more of the fellows that goes shooting and fishin'

through the grounds, says they saw her a little girl growing up, with a pinched-nosed, starved looking mamselle for a governess, hawking her around them grounds an s.n.a.t.c.hin' her off if they came within a mile of her."

Here the farmer removed his pipe and gave a long whiff of smoke, then replacing it in his mouth, he continued "We were all jest talkin' of him as ye came along, an' if ye wan't sport ye'll have to ask the old fellow, to let ye through his grounds, and then mebbe ye'll know more about him than we do ourselves."

The young city fellows did not at all dislike the idea of the adventure that was in store for them. They were summoned to supper shortly after old Joe Bentley had finished his narrative, and resolving to enlist the good wishes of the villagers at any cost they deposited a round sum of money on the battered counter of the humble "bar," to "treat the crowd,"

they said as they pa.s.sed under the low doorway into the dining-room.

It was rather a noisy meal, and Sarah's best attempt at ham and eggs, vanished in the most practical appreciation, that five young college students can show when hungry. They discussed the recent topic of Sleepy Cottage over their cold apple pie and strawberries and cream, and they all decided that it was the most romantic thing in the world, that they should be just brought to the gates of the prison wherein pined a maiden fair, through the cruelty of an unmerciful father. They manufactured quite a novel out of the details, and laid themselves out with a will to unravel the plot, or die in the attempt.

"I'd bet my bottom dollar," said one student, as he drained his gla.s.s of lager beer, "that ye Prince of Hearts," will be the one to see this, "Lady fair," the first.

"We don't dispute it," joined in the rest, "he's the devil for working his way into the favor of women."

Here they all looked at him who had addressed the villagers first, and accused him of outdoing their grandest attempts in the siege of hearts.

They called him "_Bijou_" and whether it was his name or not, he appeared quite satisfied with it. He seemed to be a little superior to the rest, judging by the deference and courtesy they showed him above what existed among themselves, and he, amiable and pleasant always, laughed good-naturedly at their words of praise, and little insinuations of a.s.sumed jealousy. They had come down to this quiet village on a "jamboree," and we all know more or less what students mean by that. It would be both unnecessary and uninteresting however to give an account in detail of these young fellows' adventures during their sojourn in the country; that part alone which affects the rest of our story, is the one we will dwell upon.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

--_Gray_

It was a hot, sultry afternoon, and even in the woods of Sleepy Cottage the breezes that ruffled the thick foliage were not so refreshing as usual. The door of the house was open, and on two large easy chairs on the vine-covered verandah were seated Alphonse de Maistre and his pretty daughter.

The old man wore large green gla.s.ses over his eyes, and his hands were folded as he sat quietly there, listening to the birds and inhaling the fragrance of the rich flowers which adorned the pretty garden.

Josephine lay with her head resting on the cushioned back of her chair, her fingers inserted between the pages of a volume she had just been reading. Both were silent for a considerable time. At length the old man spoke.

"_Es-tu la Fifine, tu ne parles pas?_"

"I am here in body," answered the girl in French, "but not in mind, not in heart."

"Always the same," the old man replied, with a tinge of sadness in his tone. "I thought you would learn wisdom before this, but you do not.

What do you want that I have not given you, except company?"

"And what is all you have given me, beside that? I want what the beggars in my books have--liberty. You are not young, you are no longer sanguine and hopeful, while my poor heart is bursting with the fullness you will not let me spend. A living death like mine's a cruelty, a tyranny that G.o.d and man must condemn."

"Must I tell you again," asked her father pa.s.sionately, "that you are differently situated from other girls? Do you not know that at your birth a woman who had been your mother's enemy cursed you and wished you trouble, and shame, and anxiety, and that I in my boundless love for you, will protect you in spite of fate, from such a destiny. The fear of such a thing being realized has sent your mother to a premature grave.

You are now entering upon the age that is capable of framing your whole life, and why not reconcile yourself to the belief, that the world, which is dazzling you with its gaudy show, is false and delusive. It is a tinsel glitter, Josephine, the wreck of the innocent and good, turn your back on it for my sake if not for your precious own."

There was a pathos in the old man's voice that would have moved any young heart but the rebellious one of the girl he addressed. There was a feeling nigh to despair in his words when he spoke to her of herself.

The real case was, that she was betrothed already to a man of whom she knew nothing whatever. It was a contract as any other, and though every discretion was used before forming it, yet Josephine would not become reconciled to the idea.

This man, chosen by her father, was a distant relative of her own, and had been reserved for her in order that certain possessions might remain in the family. She had grown up with this idea, but it was extremely repulsive to her. She detested and despised in antic.i.p.ation this man, whom she had been taught to think of as her future husband, and over and over she bemoaned the tyranny and cruelty of those who had kept her a prisoner all her young life.

There are in France, women who betray supernatural power in foreseeing the future as well as in performing sundry inexplicable feats. They are looked upon as magicians and are invariably a.s.sociated with the influence of the evil one. It had been the fate of Alphonse de Maistre's wife to incur the inveterate displeasure of one of these persons, and on the day on which her first and only child was born, Dame Feu-Rouge, obtaining admission in disguise to the bed-side of Madame de Maistre, p.r.o.nounced a fearful malediction on the sleeping form of the infant Josephine, to be realized in later years, when, to use her own words, "she would have grown up in beauty, like a fair, ripened fruit that is rotten at the core."

This cast a heavy gloom over the household of the de Maistres, and though not an over susceptible, nor superst.i.tious family, they could not shake off the presentiment, that hung like a pall over their lives. They decided to leave France, and to seek out seclusion in the backwoods of the new world, where the preservation of their child would be to them, an easy matter. It was before they left their native country, that the marriage contract was signed between Josephine de Maistre and Horace Lefevre, the children being then four and six years of age, respectively.

Up to this time, nothing had disturbed the peaceful monotony of their new home, but, all day as Alphonse de Maistre prematurely aged and gray, sat nursing the grief that had lately visited him in the death of his wife, this girl, for whom he had sacrificed all, grumbled and sighed for the dangers, from which, it had cost him so much to rescue her.

To add to the heavy burden of sorrow that afflicted him, Alphonse de Maistre had to sacrifice, that which contributed most towards making his present home endurable, his eye-sight. It had been failing rapidly for years, and finally became totally extinguished after the death of his faithful, broken-hearted wife.

Even this appealing condition of his, failed to reconcile the wayward girl, to the life he had chosen her to lead; the great pity was, that proper care had not been taken to screen those pleasures altogether from the eyes that had been forbidden to feast upon them. Through volumes of romances, and love-songs, Fifine had gathered a knowledge of what it is to live unfettered, in that world of privileges which she could see only through iron bars. Her governess too, had abused the confidence placed in her by the parents of the girl, and had sung the praises of that world outside, until Fifine yearned to cast aside her fetters, and mix in with the lively throng. She had all the qualities of a worldly girl latent within her and a strong feeling of vanity about her personal attractions, and though she resigned herself to never being able to be seen by any one, she was just as fastidious about the fit of a costume she would wear as any Parisian lady of _haut ton_.

It always irritated Josephine de Maistre, to hear her father allude to the unfortunate cloud that darkened her young life, she always raged and cried and said it was "_betises_" and on this occasion she listened no more patiently than on any other; she sprung nervously from the chair, and clasping her hands behind her back, raised her shapely head to address a large green parrot, that was whistling in his great iron cage, on the verandah beside her,--"Poor Poll, Pretty Poll"--came from the thin, pretty coral lips. Poll, thrust his head on one side, and looked almost calculatingly upon the _svelte_ figure of his mistress, and said in a meaning croak, "come to dinner--the guest is hungry."

"Greedy Poll," said Fifine, stepping in through the open French window, into the dining-room; she emerged a second later, holding a tempting cracker, between her dainty fingers, she opened the cage door and then lay back again in her cosy chair, having placed the cracker between her own lips. Poll, was quite used to being thus trusted, and stepping majestically out, he perched himself on the shapely shoulder of the young girl, and picked the cracker from its dainty resting place.

A few quiet moments ensued, disturbed only by the crunching noise of Poll's beak in the much relished biscuit, when suddenly Fifine gave a great exclamation of surprise, and darted off her seat. Poll, had abused the trust he had so long respected, and had flown off to quite a little distance from the house.

"What is the matter?" the old man asked, leaning forward anxiously in his chair.

"The naughty Poll has flown away," Fifine answered, "but he cannot go far, Preston clipped his lordship's wings a very short time ago--I will get my hat and follow him."