Kitabı oku: «Cameron of Lochiel», sayfa 3

"Impossible," said Archie; "your logic is at fault, as the professor so often had to tell you. You see the inhabitants of the north and south shores themselves go fishing with torches, whence, according to your reasoning, the islanders should have called them sorcerers; which is not the case."

While Jules was shaking his head, with no answer ready, José took up the word.

"If you would let me speak, gentlemen, I might explain your difficulty by telling you what happened to my late father who is now dead."

"Oh, by all means, tell us that; tell us what happened to your late father who is now dead," cried Jules, with a marked emphasis on the last four words.

"Yes, my dear José, do us the favor of telling us about it," added Lochiel.

"I can't half tell the story," answered José, "for, you see, I have neither the fine accent nor the splendid voice of my lamented parent. When he used to tell us what happened to him in his vigil, our bodies would shake so, as if with ague, as would do you good to see. But I'll do my best to satisfy you:

"It happened one day that my late father, who is now dead, had left the city for home somewhat late. He had even diverted himself a little, so to speak, with his acquaintances in Point Lévis. Like an honest man, he loved his drop; and on his journeys he always carried a flask of brandy in his dogfish-skin satchel. They say the liquor is the milk for old men."

"Lac dulce," interjected Archie, sententiously.

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Archie," answered José, with some warmth, "it was neither sweet water (de l'eau douce) nor lake-water (eau de lac), but very good, unadulterated brandy which my late father, now dead, was carrying in his satchel."

"Capital, upon my word!" cried Jules. "It serves you right for your perpetual Latin quotations!"

"I beg your pardon, José," said Lochiel, very seriously. "I intended not the shadow of disrespect to your late father."

"You are excused, sir," said José, entirely mollified. "It happened that it was quite dark when my father at last got under way. His friends did their best to keep him all night, telling him that he would have to pass, all by himself, the iron cage wherein La Corriveau did penance for having killed her husband.

"You saw it yourselves, gentlemen, when leaving Point Lévis at one o'clock. She was quiet then in her cage, the wicked creature, with her eyeless skull. But never you trust to her being blind. She is a cunning one, you had better believe! If she can't see in the daytime, she knows well enough how to find her way to torment poor folks at night. Well, as for my late father, who was as brave as his captain's sword, he told his friends that he didn't care – that he didn't owe La Corriveau a farthing – with a heap more reasons which I can not remember now. He put the whip to his horse, a fine brute that could travel like the wind, and was gone in a second.

"As he was passing the skeleton, he thought he heard a noise, a sort of wailing; but, as a heavy southwest wind was blowing, he made up his mind it was only the gale whistling through the bones of the corpse. It gave him a kind of a start, nevertheless, and he took a good pull at the flask to brace himself up. All things considered, however, as he said to himself, Christians should be ready to help each other; perhaps the poor creature was wanting his prayers. He took off his cap and devoutly recited a de profundis for her benefit, thinking that, if it didn't do her any good, it could at least do her no harm, and that he himself would be the better for it. Well, then he kept on as fast as he could; but, for all that, he heard a queer sound behind him – tic-tac, tic-tac, like a piece of iron striking on the stones. He thought it was the tire of his wheel, or some piece of the wagon, that had come unfastened. He got out to see, but found everything snug. He touched the horse to make up for lost time, but after a little he heard again that tic-tac, tic-tac, on the stones. Being brave, he didn't pay much attention.

"When he got to the high ground of St. Michel, which we passed a little way back, he grew very drowsy. 'After all,' said my late father, 'a man is not a dog! let us take a little nap; we'll both be the better for it, my horse and I.' Well, he unharnessed his horse, tied his legs so he would not wander too far, and said: 'There, my pet, there's good grass, and you can hear the brook yonder. Good-night.'

"As my late father crawled himself into the wagon to keep out of the dew, it struck him to wonder what time it was. After studying the 'Three Kings' to the south'ard and the 'Wagon' to the north'ard, he made up his mind it must be midnight. 'It is time,' said he, 'for honest men to be in bed.'

"Suddenly, however, it seemed to him as if Isle d'Orléans was on fire. He sprang over the ditch, leaned on the fence, opened his eyes wide, and stared with all his might. He saw at last that the flames were dancing up and down the shore, as if all the will-o'-the-wisps, all the damned souls of Canada, were gathered there to hold the witches' sabbath. He stared so hard that his eyes which had grown a little dim grew very clear again, and he saw a curious sight; you would have said they were a kind of men, a queer breed altogether. They had a head big as a peck measure, topped off with a pointed cap a yard long; then they had arms, legs, feet, and hands armed with long claws, but no body to speak of. Their crotch, begging your pardon, gentlemen, was split right up to their ears. They had scarcely anything in the way of flesh; they were kind of all bone, like skeletons. Every one of these pretty fellows had his upper lip split like a rabbit's, and through the split stuck out a rhinoceros tusk a foot long, like you see, Mr. Archie, in your book of unnatural history. As for the nose, it was nothing more nor less, begging your pardon, than a long pig's snout, which they would rub first on one side and then on the other of their great tusk, perhaps to sharpen it. I almost forgot to say that they had a long tail, twice as long as a cow's, which they used, I suppose, to keep off the flies.

"The funniest thing of all was that there were but three eyes to every couple of imps. Those that had but one eye, in the middle of the forehead, like those Cyclopes that your uncle, who is a learned man, Mr. Jules, used to read to us about out of that big book of his, all Latin, like the priest's prayer-book, which he called his Virgil – those that had but one eye held each by the claw two novices with the proper number of eyes. Out of all these eyes spurted the flames which lit up Isle d'Orléans like broad day. The novices seemed very respectful to their companions, who were, as one might say, half blind; they bowed down to them, they fawned upon them, they fluttered their arms and legs, just like good Christians dancing the minuet.

"The eyes of my late father were fairly starting out of his head. It was worse and worse when they began to jump and dance without moving from their places, and to chant in a voice as hoarse as that of a choking cow, this song:

 
"Hoary Frisker, Goblin gay,
Long-nosed Neighbor, come away!
Come my Grumbler in the mud,
Brother Frog of tainted blood!
Come, and on this juicy Christian
Let us feast it while we may!"
 

"'Ah! the accursed heathens,' exclaimed my late father, 'an honest man can not be sure of his property for a moment! Not satisfied with having stolen my favorite song, which I always keep to wind up with at weddings and feasts, just see how they've played the devil with it! One would hardly recognize it. It is Christians instead of good wine that they are going to treat themselves to, the scoundrels!'

"Then the imps went on with their hellish song, glaring at my late father, and curling their long snouts around their great rhinoceros tusks:

 
"Come, my tricksy Traveler's Guide,
Devil's Minion true and tried.
Come, my Sucking-Pig, my Simple,
Brother Wart and Brother Pimple;
Here's a fat and juicy Frenchman
To be pickled, to be fried!"
 

"'All that I can say to you just now, my darlings,' cried my late father, 'is that if you get no more fat to eat than what I'm going to bring you on my lean carcass you'll hardly need to skim your broth.'

"The goblins, however, seemed to be expecting something, for they kept turning their heads every moment. My late father looked in the same direction. What was that he saw on the hill-side? A mighty devil, built like the rest, but as long as the steeple St. Michel, which we passed awhile back. Instead of the pointed bonnet, he wore a three-horned hat, topped with a big thorn bush in place of a feather. He had but one eye, blackguard that he was, but that was as good as a dozen. He was doubtless the drum-major of the regiment, for he held in his hand a saucepan twice as big as our maple-sugar kettles, which hold twenty gallons, and in the other hand a bell-clapper, which no doubt the dog of a heretic had stolen from some church before its consecration. He pounded on his saucepan, and all the scoundrels began to laugh, to jump, to flutter, nodding to my late father as if inviting him to come and amuse himself with them.

"'You'll wait a long time, my lambs,' thought my late father to himself, his teeth chattering in his head as if he had the shaking fever – 'you will wait a long time, my gentle lambs. I'm not in any hurry to quit the good Lord's earth to live with the goblins!'

"Suddenly the tall devil began to sing a hellish round, accompanying himself on the saucepan, which he beat furiously, and all the goblins darted away like lightning – so fast, indeed, that it took them less than a minute to go all the way around the island. My poor late father was so stupefied by the hubbub that he could not remember more than three verses of the song, which ran like this:

 
"Here's the spot that suits us well
When it gets too hot in hell —
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.
"Come along and stir your sticks,
You jolly dogs of heretics —
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.
"Room for all, there's room for all
That skim or wriggle, bounce or crawl —
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round."
 

"My late father was in a cold sweat; he had not yet, however, come to the worst of it."

Here José paused. "But I am dying for a smoke, and, with your permission, gentlemen, I'll light my pipe."

"Quite right, my dear José," answered D'Haberville. "For my own part, I am dying for something else. My stomach declares that this is dinner-hour at college. Let's have a bite to eat."

Jules enjoyed the privilege of aristocratic descent – he had always a magnificent appetite. This was specially excusable to-day, seeing that he had dined at noon, and had had an immense deal of exercise since.

CHAPTER III.
LA CORRIVEAU

Sganarelle. – Seigneur commandeur, mon maitre, Don Juan, vous demande si vous voulez lui faire l'honneur de venir souper avec lui.

Le même. – La statue m'a fait signe.

Le Festin de Pierre.

 
What? the ghosts are growing ruder,
How they beard me…
To-night – why this is Goblin Hall,
Spirits and specters all in all.
 

Faustus.

José, after having unbridled the horse and given him what he called a mouthful of hay, made haste to open a box which he had ingeniously arranged on the sled to serve, as needs might be, both for seat and larder. He brought out a great napkin in which were wrapped up two roast chickens, a tongue, a ham, a little flask of brandy, a good big bottle of wine. He was going to retire when Jules said to him:

"Come along and take a bite with us, José."

"Yes, indeed, come and sit here by me," said Archie.

"Oh, gentlemen," said José, "I know my place too well – "

"Come now, no affectations," said Jules. "We are here like three soldiers in camp; will you be so good as to come, you obstinate fellow?"

"Since you say so, gentlemen, I must obey my officers," answered Jules.

The two young men seated themselves on the box which served them also for a table. José took his place very comfortably on a bundle of hay, and all three began to eat and drink with a hearty appetite.

Archie, naturally abstemious, had soon finished his meal. Having nothing better to do, he began to philosophize. In his lighter moods he loved to propound paradoxes for the pleasure of the argument.

"Do you know, brother mine, what it was that interested me most in my friend's story?"

"No," exclaimed Jules, attacking another drumstick; "and what's more, for the next quarter of an hour I don't care. The hungry stomach has no ears."

"Oh, that's no matter," said Archie. "It was those devils, goblins, spirits, or whatever you choose to call them, with only one eye; I wish that the fashion could be adopted among men; there would be fewer hypocrites, fewer rogues, and therefore fewer dupes. Assuredly, it is some consolation to see that virtue is held in honor even among hobgoblins. Did you notice with what respect those one-eyed fellows were treated by the other imps?"

"That may be," said Jules, "but what does it prove?"

"It proves," answered Lochiel, "that the one-eyed fellows deserved the special attentions that were paid them; they are the haute noblesse among hobgoblins. Above all they are not hypocrites."

"Nonsense," said Jules, "I begin to be afraid your brain is softening."

"Oh, no, I'm not so crazy as you think," answered Archie. "Just watch a hypocrite with somebody he wants to deceive. With what humility he keeps one eye half shut while the other watches the effect of his words. If he had but one eye he would lose this immense advantage, and would have to give up his rôle of hypocrite which he finds so profitable. There, you see, is one vice the less. My Cyclops of a hobgoblin has probably many other vices, but he is certainly no hypocrite; whence the respect to which he is treated by a class of beings stained with all the vices in the category."

"Here's your health, my Scottish philosopher," exclaimed Jules, tossing off a glass of wine. "Hanged if I understand a word of your reasoning though."

"But it's clear as day," answered Archie. "The heavy and indigestible stuff with which you are loading down your stomach must be clogging your brains. If you ate nothing but oatmeal, as we Highlanders do, your ideas would be a good deal clearer."

"That oatmeal seems to stick in your throat, my friend," said Jules; "it ought to be easy enough to digest, however, even without the help of sauce."

"Here's another example," said Archie. "A rogue who wishes to cheat an honest man in any kind of a transaction always keeps one eye winking or half shut, while the other watches to see whether he is gaining or losing in the trade. One eye is plotting while the other watches. That is a vast advantage for the rogue. His antagonist, on the other hand, seeing one eye clear, frank, and honest, can not suspect what is going on behind the eye which blinks, and plots, and calculates, while its fellow keeps as impenetrable as fate. Now let us reverse the matter," continued Archie. "Let us suppose the same rogue in the same circumstances, but blind of one eye. The honest man watching his face may often read in his eye his inmost thoughts; for my Cyclops, being himself suspicious, is constrained to keep his one eye wide open."

"Rather," laughed Jules, "if he doesn't want to break his neck."

"Granted," replied Lochiel, "but still more for the purpose of reading the soul of him he wants to deceive. He finds it necessary, moreover, to give his eye an expression of candor and good-fellowship in order to divert suspicion – which must absorb a portion of his wits. Then, since there are few men who can follow, without the help of both their eyes, two different trains of thought at the same time, our rogue finds that he has lost half of his advantage. He renounces his wicked calling, and society is the richer by one more honest man."

"My poor Archie," murmured Jules, "I see that we have exchanged rôles; that I am now the Scotch philosopher, as I so courteously entitle you, while you are the crazy Frenchman, as you irreverently term me. For, don't you see, my new Prometheus, that this one-eyed race of men, endowed with all the virtues which you intend to substitute, might very readily blink, if that is an infallible recipe for deception, and for the purpose of taking observations just open their eye from time to time."

"Oh, you French, you frivolous French, you deluded French, no wonder the English catch you on the hip in diplomacy!"

"It would seem to me," interrupted Jules, "that the Scotch ought to know something by this time about English diplomacy!"

Archie's face saddened and grew pale; his friend had touched a sore spot. Jules perceived this at once and said:

"Forgive me, dear fellow, if I have hurt you. I know the subject is one that calls up painful memories. I spoke, as usual, without thinking. One often thoughtlessly wounds those one best loves by a retort which one may think very witty. But come, let us drink to a merry life! Go on with your remarkable reasoning; that will be pleasanter for both of us."

"The cloud has passed over, and I resume my argument," said Lochiel, repressing his emotion. "Don't you see that my rascal could not shut his eye for an instant without the risk of his prey escaping him? Do you remember the squirrel that we saved last year from that great snake, at the foot of the old maple-tree in your father's park; remember how the snake kept its glowing eyes fixed upon the poor little creature in order to fascinate it; how the squirrel kept springing from branch to branch with piteous cries, unable to remove its gaze for an instant from that of the hideous reptile? When we made it look away it was saved. Do you remember how joyous it was after the death of its enemy? Well, my friend, let our rogue shut his eye and his prey escapes him."

"Verily," said Jules, "you are a mighty dialectician. I shouldn't wonder if you would some day eclipse, if you don't do it already, such prattlers as Socrates, Zeno, Montaigne, and other philosophers of that ilk. The only danger is lest your logic should some day land you in the moon."

"You think you can make fun of me," said Archie. "Very well, but only let some pedant, with his pen behind his ear, undertake to refute my thesis seriously, and a hundred scribblers in battle array will take sides for and against, and floods of ink will flow. The world has been deluged with blood itself in defense of theories about as reasonable as mine. Why such a thing has often been enough to make a man famous."

"Meanwhile," answered Jules, "your argument will serve as one of those after-pieces with which Sancho Panza used to put Don Quixote to sleep. As for me, I greatly prefer the story of our friend José."

"You are easily pleased, sir," said the latter, who had been taking a nap during the scientific discussion.

"Let us listen," said Archie; "Conticuêre omnes, intentique ora tenebant."

"Conticuêre … you irrepressible pedant," cried D'Haberville.

"It's not one of the priest's stories," put in José briskly; "but it is as true as if he had told it from the pulpit; for my late father never lied."

"We believe you, my dear José," said Lochiel. "But now please go on with your delightful narrative."

"Well," said José, "it happened that my late father, brave as he was, was in such a devil of a funk that the sweat was hanging from the end of his nose like a head of oats. There he was, the dear man, with his eyes bigger than his head, never daring to budge. Presently he thought he heard behind him the 'tic tac,' 'tic tac,' which he had already heard several times on the journey; but he had too much to occupy his attention in front of him to pay much heed to what might pass behind. Suddenly, when he was least expecting it, he felt two great bony hands, like the claws of a bear, grip him by the shoulders. He turned around horrified, and found himself face to face with La Corriveau, who was climbing on his back. She had thrust her hands through the bars of her cage and succeeded in clutching him; but the cage was heavy, and at every leap she fell back again to the ground with a hoarse cry, without losing her hold, however, on the shoulders of my late father, who bent under the burden. If he had not held tight to the fence with both hands, he would have been crushed under the weight. My poor late father was so overwhelmed with horror that one might have heard the sweat that rolled off his forehead dropping down on the fence like grains of duck-shot.

"'My dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'do me the pleasure of taking me to dance with my friends of Isle d'Orléans?'

"'Oh, you devil's wench!' cried my late father. That was the only oath the good man ever used, and that only when very much tried."

"The deuce!" exclaimed Jules, "it seems to me that the occasion was a very suitable one. For my own part, I should have been swearing like a heathen."

"And I," said Archie, "like an Englishman."

"Isn't that much the same thing," answered D'Haberville.

"You are wrong, my dear Jules. I must acknowledge that the heathen acquit themselves very well; but the English? Oh, my! Le Roux who, soon as he got out of college, made a point of reading all the bad books he could get hold of, told us, if you remember, that that blackguard of a Voltaire, as my uncle the Jesuit used to call him, had declared in a book of his, treating of what happened in France in the reign of Charles VII, when that prince was hunting the islanders out of his kingdom – Le Roux told us that Voltaire had put it on record that 'every Englishman swears.' Well, my boy, those events took place about the year 1445 – let us say, three hundred years ago. Judge, then, what dreadful oaths that ill-tempered nation must have invented in the course of three centuries!"

"I surrender," said Jules. "But go on, my dear José."

"'Devil's wench!' exclaimed my late father, 'is that your gratitude for my de profundis and all my other prayers? You'd drag me into the orgie, would you? I was thinking you must have been in for at least three or four thousand years of purgatory for your pranks; and you had only killed two husbands – which was a mere nothing. So having always a tender heart for everything, I felt sorry for you, and said to myself we must give you a helping hand. And this is the way you thank me, that you want to straddle my shoulders and ride me to hell like a heretic!'

"'My dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'take me over to dance with my dear friends;' and she knocked her head against that of my late father till her skull rattled like a dry bladder filled with pebbles.

"'You may be sure,' said my late father, 'You hellish wench of Judas Iscariot, I'm not going to be your jackass to carry you over to dance with those pretty darlings!'

"'My dear Francis,' answered the witch, 'I can not cross the St. Lawrence, which is a consecrated stream, except with the help of a Christian.'

"'Get over as best you can, you devilish gallows bird,' said my late father. 'Get over as best you can; every one to his own business. Oh, yes, a likely thing that I'll carry you over to dance with your dear friends; but that will be a devil of a journey you have come, the Lord knows how, dragging that fine cage of yours, which must have torn up all the stones on the king's highway! A nice row there'll be when the inspector passes this way one of these days and finds the road in such a condition! And then, who but the poor habitant will have to suffer for your frolics, getting fined for not having kept the road properly!'

"The drum-major suddenly stopped beating on his great sauce-pan. All the goblins halted and gave three yells, three frightful whoops, like the Indians give when they have danced that war-dance with which they always begin their bloody expeditions. The island was shaken to its foundation, the wolves, the bears, all the other wild beasts, and the demons of the northern mountains took up the cry, and the echoes repeated it till it was lost in the forests of the far-off Saguenay.

"My poor, late father thought that the end of the world had come, and the Day of Judgment.

"The tall devil with the sauce-pan struck three blows; and a silence most profound succeeded the hellish hubbub. He stretched out his arm toward my late father, and cried with a voice of thunder: 'Will you make haste, you lazy dog? will you make haste, you cur of a Christian, and ferry our friend across? We have only fourteen thousand four hundred times more to prance around the island before cock-crow. Are you going to make her lose the best of the fun?'

"'Go to the devil, where you all belong,' answered my late father, losing all patience.

"'Come, my dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'be a little more obliging. You are acting like a child about a mere trifle. Moreover, see how the time is flying. Come, now, one little effort!'

"'No, no, my wench of Satan,' said my late father. 'Would to Heaven you still had on the fine collar which the hangman put around your neck two years ago. You wouldn't have so clear a wind-pipe.'

"During this dialogue the goblins on the island resumed their chorus:

 
"'Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.'"
 

"'My dear Francis,' said the witch, 'if your body and bones won't carry me over, I'm going to strangle you. I will straddle your soul and ride over to the festival.' With these words, she seized him by the throat and strangled him."

"What," exclaimed the young men, "she strangled your poor, late father, now dead?"

"When I said strangled, it was very little better than that," answered José, "for the dear man lost his consciousness."

"When he came to himself he heard a little bird, which cried Qué-tu? (Who art thou?)

"'Oh, ho!' said my late father, 'it's plain I'm not in hell, since I hear the dear Lord's birds!' He opened first one eye, then the other, and saw that it was broad daylight. The sun was shining right in his face; the little bird, perched on a neighboring branch, kept crying qué-tu?'

"'My dear child,' said my late father, 'it is not very easy to answer your question, for I'm not very certain this morning just who I am. Only yesterday I believed myself to be a brave, honest, and God-fearing man; but I have had such an experience this night that I can hardly be sure that it is I, Francis Dubé, here present in body and soul. Then the dear man began to sing:

 
'Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.'
 

"In fact, he was half bewitched. At last, however, he perceived that he was lying full length in a ditch where, happily, there was more mud than water; but for that my poor, late father, who now sleeps with the saints, surrounded by all his relations and friends, and fortified by all the holy sacraments, would have died without absolution, like a monkey in his old tree, begging your pardon for the comparison, young gentlemen. When he had got his face clear from the mud of the ditch, in which he was stuck fast as in a vise, the first thing he saw was his flask on the bank above him. At this he plucked up his courage and stretched out his hand to take a drink. But no such luck! The flask was empty! The witch had drained every drop."

"My dear José," said Lochiel, "I think I am about as brave as the next one. Nevertheless, if such an adventure had happened to me, never again would I have traveled alone at night."

"Nor I either," said D'Haberville.

"To tell you the truth, gentlemen," said José, "since you are so discriminating, I will confess that my late father, who before this adventure would not have turned a hair in the graveyard at midnight, was never afterward so bold; he dared not even go alone after sunset to do his chores in the stable."

"And very sensible he was; but finish your story," said Jules.

"It is finished," said José. "My late father harnessed his horse, who appeared, poor brute, to have noticed nothing unusual, and made his way home fast as possible. It was not till a fortnight later that he told us his adventure."

"What do you say to all that, my self-satisfied skeptic who would refuse to Canada the luxury of witches and wizards?" inquired D'Haberville.

"I say," answered Archie, "that our Highland witches are mere infants compared with those of New France, and, what's more, if ever I get back to my Scottish hills, I'm going to imprison all our hobgoblins in bottles, as Le Sage did with his wooden-legged devil, Asmodeus."

"Hum-m-m!" said José. "It would serve them just right, accursed blackguards; but where would you get bottles big enough? There'd be the difficulty."