The Lady of Fort St. John Part 1

The Lady of Fort St. John.

by Mary Hartwell Catherwood.

PREFACE.

How can we care for shadows and types, when we may go back through history and live again with people who actually lived?

Sitting on the height which is now topped by a Martello tower, at St.

John in the maritime province of New Brunswick, I saw--not the opposite city, not the lovely bay; but this tragedy of Marie de la Tour, the tragedy "which recalls" (says the Abbe Casgrain in his "Pelerinage au pays d'Evangeline") "the romances of Walter Scott, and forces one to own that reality is stranger than fiction."

In "Papers relating to the rival chiefs, D'Aulnay and La Tour," of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collection, vol. vii., may be found these prefatory remarks:--

"There is a romance of History as well as a History of Romance. To the former cla.s.s belong many incidents in the early periods of New England and its adjacent colonies. The following papers ... refer to two persons, D'Aulnay and La Tour, ... individuals of respectable intellect and education, of n.o.ble families and large fortune. While the first was a zealous and efficient supporter of the Roman Church, the second was less so, from his frequent connection with others of a different faith.

The scene of their ... prominent actions, their exhibition of various pa.s.sions and talents, their conquests and defeats, their career and end, as exerting an influence on their a.s.sociates as well as themselves, on other communities as well as their own--was laid in Nova Scotia. This phrase then comprised a territory vastly more extensive than it does now as a British Province. It embraced not only its present boundaries, which were long termed Acadia, but also about two thirds of the State of Maine."

It startles the modern reader, in examining doc.u.ments of the French archives relating to the colonies, to come upon a letter from Louis XIII. to his beloved D'Aulnay de Charnisay, thanking that governor of Acadia for his good service at Fort St. John. Thus was that great race who first trod down the wilderness on this continent continually and cruelly hampered by the man who sat on the throne in France.

LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN.

PRELUDE.

AT THE HEAD OF THE BAY OF FUNDY.

The Atlantic rushed across a mile or two of misty beach, boring into all its channels in the neck of Acadia. Twilight and fog blurred the landscape, but the eye could trace a long swell of earth rising gradually from the bay, through marshes, to a summit with a small stockade on its southern slope. Sentinels pacing within the stockade felt the weird influence of that bald land. The guarded spot seemed an island in a sea of vapor and spring night was bringing darkness upon it.

The stockade inclosed a single building of rough logs clumsily put together, and c.h.i.n.ked with the hard red soil. An unhewn wall divided the house into two rooms, and in one room were gathered less than a dozen men-at-arms. Their officer lay in one of the cupboard-like bunks, with his hands clasped under his head. Some of the men were already asleep; others sat by the hearth, rubbing their weapons or spreading some garment to dry. A door in the part.i.tion opened, and the wife of one of the men came from the inner room.

"Good-night, madame," she said.

"Good-night, Zelie," answered a voice within.

"If you have further need of me, you will call me, madame?"

"a.s.suredly. Get to your rest. To-morrow we may have stormy weather for our voyage home."

The woman closed the door, and the face of the one who had hearkened to her turned again to the fireplace. It was a room repeating the men's barrack in hewed floor, loophole windows, and rough joists.

This frontier outpost on the ridge since called Beausejour was merely a convenient halting-place for one of the lords of Acadia. It stood on a detached spot of his large seigniory, which he had received with other portions of western Acadia in exchange for his grant of Cape Sable.

Though in his early thirties, Charles de la Tour had seen long service in the New World. Seldom has a man from central France met the northern cold and sea air with so white a favor. His clean-shaven skin and the sunny undecided color of his hair were like a child's. Part of his armor had been unbuckled, and lay on the floor near him. He sat in a chair of twisted boughs, made of refuse from trees his men had dragged out of the neighboring forest for the building of the outpost. His wife sat on a pile of furs beside his knee. Her Huguenot cap lay on the shelf above the fire. She wore a black gown slashed in the sleeves with white, and a kerchief of lace pushed from her throat. Her black hair, which Zelie had braided, hung down in two ropes to the floor.

"How soon, monsieur," she asked, "can you return to Fort St. John?"

"With all speed possible, Marie. Soon, if we can work the miracle of moving a peace-loving man like Denys to action."

"Nicholas Denys ought to take part with you."

"Yet he will scarce do it."

"The king-favored governor of Acadia will some time turn and push him as he now pushes you."

"D'Aulnay hath me at sore straits," confessed La Tour, staring at the flame, "since he has cut off from me the help of the Bostonnais."

"They were easily cut off," said Marie. "Monsieur, those Huguenots of the colonies were never loving friends of ours. Their policy hath been to weaken this province by helping the quarrel betwixt D'Aulnay and you.

Now that D'Aulnay has strength at court, and has persuaded the king to declare you an outlaw, the Bostonnais think it wise to withdraw their hired soldiers from you. We have not offended the Bostonnais as allies; we have only gone down in the world."

La Tour stirred uneasily.

"I dread that D'Aulnay may profit by this hasty journey I make to northern Acadia, and again attack the fort in my absence."

"He hath once found a woman there who could hold it," said Marie, checking a laugh.

La Tour moved his palm over her cheek. Within his mind the province of Acadia lay spread from Pen.o.bscot River to the Island of Sable, and from the southern tip of the peninsula now called Nova Scotia nearly to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. This domain had been parceled in grants: the north to Nicholas Denys; the centre and west to D'Aulnay de Charnisay; and the south, with posts on the western coast, to Charles de la Tour.

Being Protestant in faith, La Tour had no influence at the court of Louis XIII. His grant had been confirmed to him from his father. He had held it against treason to France; and his loyal service, at least, was regarded until D'Aulnay de Charnisay became his enemy. Even in that year of grace 1645, before Acadia was diked by home-making Norman peasants or watered by their parting tears, contending forces had begun to trample it. Two feudal barons fought each other on the soil of the New World.

"All things failing me"--La Tour held out his wrists, and looked at them with a sharp smile.

"Let D'Aulnay shake a warrant, monsieur. He must needs have you before he can carry you in chains to France."

She seized La Tour's hands, with a swift impulse of atoning to them for the thought of such indignity, and kissed his wrists. He set his teeth on a trembling lip.

"I should be a worthless, aimless vagrant without you, Marie. You are young, and I give you fatigue and heart-sickening peril instead of jewels and merry company."

"The merriest company for us at present, monsieur, are the men of our honest garrison. If Edelwald, who came so lately, complains not of this New World life, I should endure it merrily enough. And you know I seldom now wear the jewels belonging to our house. Our chief jewel is buried in the ground."

She thought of a short grave wrapped in fogs near Fort St. John; of fair curls and sweet childish limbs, and a mouth shouting to send echoes through the river gorge; of scamperings on the flags of the hall; and of the erect and princely carriage of that diminutive presence the men had called "my little lord."

"But it is better for the boy that he died, Marie," murmured La Tour.

"He has no part in these times. He might have survived us to see his inheritance stripped from him."

They were silent until Marie said, "You have a long march before you to-morrow, monsieur."

"Yes; we ought to throw ourselves into these mangers," said La Tour.

One wall was lined with bunks like those in the outer room. In the lower row travelers' preparations were already made for sleeping.

"I am yet of the mind, monsieur," observed Marie, "that you should have made this journey entirely by sea."

"It would cost me too much in time to round Cape Sable twice. Nicholas Denys can furnish ship as well as men, if he be so minded. My lieutenant in arms next to Edelwald," said La Tour, smiling over her, "my equal partner in troubles, and my lady of Fort St. John will stand for my honor and prosperity until I return."

Marie smiled back.

"D'Aulnay has a fair wife, and her husband is rich, and favored by the king, and has got himself made governor of Acadia in your stead. She sits in her own hall at Port Royal: but poor Madame D'Aulnay! She has not thee!"