The False Chevalier Part 31

"Time is not important to me, father," answered Germain cheerfully. "May I take the register to this table near the light?"

"With pleasure; but should the handwriting be difficult, speak to me. I am the archivist of the abbey." And thus saying he turned back to his workmen.

Lecour examined the volume with beating heart. He nervously fingered the leaves at first without receiving any distinct impression of the contents, his brain was so full of other thoughts. At last he noticed that the entries were regular and consecutive, and though written in different hands, were clear to follow. He reached the month of June, read its entries slowly, one after another--a birth, a marriage, a death, then another death, then a birth again, and so on, with the names of the parties and their parents, some high, some low, until he came to nearly the end, when suddenly one seemed to stare at him out of the page.

"The 27th,--Took place the baptism of Francois Xavier, tenth son of _Pierre Lecour, master-butcher, of this Parish_, and of his wife, Marie LeCoq. He had for G.o.dfather, Jean LeCoq, tinker, and for G.o.dmother, Therese, wife of Louis Bossu, Charcoal vendor."

From the moment he read the word "master-butcher," his head swam, his heart sank, he felt a blow as if it were the stunning thud of a heavy weight upon it, and an unconscious groan escaped him.

"Monsieur is sick," exclaimed the priest to his men. "Bring wine."

"No, father," returned Germain, slowly rising, and steadying himself, "it is nothing," and he walked forward and left the sacristy.

The room had two doors leading inward to the high altar, one on each side. Just as Lecour pa.s.sed out by the left one, Jude glided in by that on the right, and crossing boldly to the open book, pounced upon the entry of baptism.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

AT QUEBEC

Germain was now committed to the most desperate courses to maintain his a.s.sumed character. He left France, and by way of London, took s.h.i.+p for his colony. The Canada of 1788 was a quaint community shut away out of the great world. It consisted of a few widely separated hamlets, keeping in touch with each other by means of a long road on each sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence, and having as chief cities the two tiny walled towns of Quebec and Montreal. It possessed a population of perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand souls, all French except a couple of British regiments, and a handful of officials and tradesmen. Some bodies of refugee Loyalists of the American Revolution had recently also come in. The driblet of population thus strung scantily along the banks of the vast river seemed as nothing in the mighty forest by which it was surrounded.

The country therefore had in great part the virgin look of the primeval solitude.

After an eight weeks' stormy voyage in the London barque _Chatham_, Germain cast his eyes with relief on the tawny, lion-like rock of Quebec, with the fortress above and the little town about its feet, and straggling up its sides. The vessel at length drew up to moorings, the anchor dropped, and a boat came out for the pa.s.sengers. He disembarked with his boxes, and inquired for a good lodging in the Upper Town. A _caleche_-driver undertook to find him one, and leaving the heavier luggage with a merchant near by, lashed his brisk little horse with the ends of the reins, and inspired it into a cat-like climb by which Lecour was whisked up the precipitous windy street called Mountain Hill, from the busy Lower to the aristocratic and military Upper Town.

After some searching they found a certain Madame Langlois, a widow who lived in a comfortable house on St. Louis Street, and could give the gentleman a front room on her first floor. There he could see the princ.i.p.al doings of the town, for it was not far from the Place d'Armes and the Castle. It suited him and he installed himself. As it was late in the afternoon, he occupied the time by unpacking his effects until called to supper by Madame Langlois. At the meal, he noted that his landlady--a thin, civil woman of thirty-eight or so, was simply dying of discreet curiosity. He vouchsafed her only his name, and that he was just arrived from France. He, however, asked a number of questions about the Castle, the Governor, his staff, and the prominent people of the town, and inflamed her interest as much by his questions as by his dress and manners. Then retiring till dusk fell, he went out and wandered about the neighbourhood.

The rock of Quebec is like a lion couchant beside the St. Lawrence. On the head is the fortress, on the back the Upper Town, around the feet nestles the Lower Town, while the River St. Charles flows around the hinder parts.

The city was no vast place: its population was but some seven thousand souls, with about two thousand of a garrison, and the occupied area in the Upper Town covered a few streets only, the remainder consisting of gra.s.sy fields stretching to the fortification walls. The citadel, picturesquely crowning the summit of the rock, stood several hundred yards higher, at one side. The Castle of St. Louis, the main ornament of the place next to the cathedral, overlooked the cliff, resting on a series of tall b.u.t.tresses ribbing the side of the precipice.

At every point along the "lion's back," or upper edge of the cliff, where Germain was, a magnificent view greeted him. He stopped to enjoy it. The harbour lay glimmering far below in the moonbeams, across it the heights of Levis stretched along the weird landscape. The lighted windows of the Lower Town, of which he could see little more than the s.h.i.+mmering dark roofs, shone up obliquely. All was domed over by a dark-blue sky in which the harvest moon rode.

He walked back from the cliff along the Rue St. Louis to the city wall, and returned by the Rue Buade. In doing so he scanned the fortifications with military interest, and returning, remarked the dark, low pile of the convent of the Jesuits, and also the cathedral and the seminary adjoining. He remembered once hearing his father say this cathedral of Quebec had been designed by one of the de Lerys. From the place in front of it he could make out dimly, down the slope of Ste. Famille Street close by, the de Lery mansion itself.

"The father and mother will be there," he cogitated. "They will have had letters about me from France by this time."

He turned again along Buade Street, and continued his stroll with an object, for at the point where the sharp descent towards the Lower Town began he brought up before a stately house of stone, of an antique architecture, on the face of which, over the door, something indistinctly glittered. It was the house of the Golden Dog; and as he surveyed it and tried vainly to read the letters of the inscription, his shadowy visitor at Troyes once more arose vividly before his imagination, and the terrible scene of Philibert's murder seemed to be enacted again upon the flight of steps before the door. Absorbed in the gruesome story with which he was so strangely connected, he returned to his chamber, and retired.

Twice he heard the tramp of a change of guards pa.s.sing along the street.

Once a convent bell rang, perhaps for some midnight burial.

The next day at breakfast he learned from his hostess that the presence of the strange gentleman lodging with her had been remarked by several young women, and that it was already the gossip of the Upper Town. In the course of her stream of news she mentioned Monsieur de Lery. The hand with which he was about to lift his cup to his lips stopped, and he casually asked--

"Who is _he_?"

"The Honourable Monsieur de Lery," she exclaimed. "I thought he was known to all the world. He is the senior in the Governor's council, and his lady is the best customer of my brother-in-law's shop. The old Chevalier de Lery never did a wrong to any one, and if he is a little stiff, he still walks the straightest man in the town of Quebec."

Lecour withdrew to his chamber, and opened a miniature portmanteau covered with purple leather and stamped in gold with the de Lincy arms.

He drew out a parchment, which he placed on the table. Then, taking from his clothes-box the uniform of his lieutenancy in the Bodyguard--which he had been so expressly forbidden to wear--he dressed himself before the gla.s.s with the greatest care, and having finished, put on his sword, placed the parchment in his bosom, took up his hat, and went forth with his ordinary air of ease and command. Pa.s.sing along the street and across the Place d'Armes--at the insignificance of which, comparing it with that of Versailles, he laughed almost aloud--he entered the gate of the Castle.

The tow-headed Briton who was performing sentry duty at the gate, though he challenged him like an automaton, was astonished at the sight of a uniform, the like of which, in style, brilliancy, and ornaments, he had never before seen.

"Be blowed to me, Bill," he soon afterwards remarked to a comrade of the guard-room, "if I didn't take 'im fer ole General Montcalm come back from blazes; 'e looked so grand an' Frenchy-like, an' come on me so sudden."

The Governor's _aide-de-camp_, de la Naudiere, a das.h.i.+ng Canadian officer, was almost as surprised at the sight of Lecour's uniform as the sentry, and receiving him with profound deference, read the pa.s.sport which the new arrival handed him. He was not aware how closely the eyes of Germain watched his face. At the name "LeCour de Lincy, Esquire," in the paper he gave a slight start, but by the time he came to the end his manner recovered itself, and he greeted him cordially.

"The French army, Monsieur, never lacks honour in the Province of Quebec. You bear a uniform and a rank which commend you to our best hospitalities. Will you permit me to share my good fortune in meeting you with our Governor, Lord Dorchester?"

"I have heard of Lord Dorchester," replied Germain, "how gallant a man he is, and how true a friend to our nation."

"Nothing is truer, sir; every Canadian will tell you he is the soul of kindness and sympathy with us, and that he has quite withdrawn the sting of our being a conquered people. Here I am, a Catholic and a Canadian, yet as well pleased as if I were in the service of France. His friends.h.i.+p with our gentry is like the relation of a veritable father to his family."

"Were not his services very great in the American Revolution? I have heard General Lafayette speak highly of his name."

"Yes, Monsieur; his services preserved this Province from the enemy, and we have named him 'the Saviour of Canada.' Pardon me a moment to announce you."

While waiting to be summoned to the Governor, Lecour glanced around. The part of the buildings in which he stood was the Old Chateau, a picturesque structure of the French times, dating from 1694, crowning its conspicuous position as a landmark by a mediaeval roof of steep pitch; while a gallery two hundred feet in length ran along the outside, supported by tall b.u.t.tresses, which, clinging to the cliff-side, gave it beneath the same elongated lines as the steep roof above. The result was exceedingly quaint and castellated. He remembered that he had often seen it thus from the river. His present point of view gave him, through the windows and over the gallery, another form of his view of the harbour and Point Levis, one of the most striking landscapes in the world.

Looking closer about the room, the low-raftered ceilings of an older time brought another thought to his mind.

"Is not this," he exclaimed to himself, "the very chamber where Count Frontenac, a hundred years ago, must have received the envoy of Admiral Phipps with request to surrender, and returned the reply, 'I will answer your master by the mouth of my cannon.'" He imagined he heard the gallant veteran say the words.

Turning to the windows towards the courtyard, he saw opposite the handsome new range of buildings lately erected, and nicknamed "Castle Haldimand," in which were the apartments of the Governor and his family, and which, on their further side, fronted on the Place d'Armes.

As a boy he had once looked into the courtyard, and contemplated its precincts with juvenile awe. Now, he was standing a guest of honour in the then inaccessible arcana. He was not given much time to continue his reflections. De la Naudiere came back, brought him across, and conducted him into the reception chamber of Governor Dorchester. His Excellency, who was a large, finely-made man of a ruddy and generous countenance, received him with that trained, lofty courtesy which marked the meeting of distinguished men of that time, and Lecour, as he reciprocated the salutation, saw that he had nothing to fear from him.

"I recognise your uniform, Chevalier," said he, "which revives to me some pleasant memories of Versailles."

"Your Lords.h.i.+p is, then, acquainted with my Sovereign's Court? His Majesty knows how to appreciate a brave man."

"He has too many in his service to do otherwise; but I have no pretensions on that score."

"The world well knows, your Excellency, 'The Saviour of Canada,'" Lecour replied, "and my country honours you as one of the worthiest of former foes."

"Tut, tut, Monsieur le Chevalier--excuse the freedom of an old Englishman in turning the conversation. My lady will die of curiosity over the appearance of a Garde-du-Corps in this out-of-the-way quarter of the globe. How can I answer her as to the cause?"

"Private business with my family, my Lord, connected with an estate in our mother country."

"Ah, your people are Canadians?"

"My father is generally known as the Merchant Lecour of St Elphege. His full name is LeCour de Lincy."

"That is the name on your pa.s.sport," interrupted de la Naudiere. "I never knew he was a n.o.ble."

"He has never boasted of it," returned Lecour.