"No great thing in that, your Excellency," replied the Bourgeois, who hated compliments to himself. "If those who have do not give, how can you get from those who have not? You may lay some of it to the account of Pierre too,--he was in Acadia, you know, Governor." A flash of honest pride passed over the usually sedate features of the Bourgeois at the mention of his son.

Le Gardeur looked at his sister. She knew instinctively that his thoughts put into words would say, "He is worthy to be your father, Amelie!" She blushed with a secret pleasure, but spoke not. The music in her heart was without words yet; but one day it would fill the universe with harmony for her.

The Governor noticed the sudden reticence, and half surmising the cause, remarked playfully, "The Iroquois will hardly dare approach Tilly with such a garrison as Pierre Philibert and Le Gardeur, and with you, my Lady de Tilly, as commandant, and you, Mademoiselle Amelie, as aide-de-camp!"

"To be sure! your Excellency," replied the Lady de Tilly. "The women of Tilly have worn swords and kept the old house before now!" she added playfully, alluding to a celebrated defence of the chateau by a former lady of the Manor at the head of a body of her censitaires; "and depend upon it, we shall neither give up Tilly nor Le Gardeur either, to whatever savages claim them, be they red or white!"

The lady's allusion to his late associates did not offend Le Gardeur, whose honest nature despised their conduct, while he liked their company. They all understood her, and laughed. The Governor's loyalty to the King's commission prevented his speaking his thoughts. He only remarked, "Le Gardeur and Pierre Philibert will be under your orders, my Lady, and my orders are that they are not to return to the city until all dangers of the Iroquois are over."

"All right, your Excellency!" exclaimed Le Gardeur. "I shall obey my aunt." He was acute enough to see through their kindly scheming for his welfare; but his good nature and thorough devotion to his aunt and sister, and his affectionate friendship for Pierre, made him yield to the project without a qualm of regret. Le Gardeur was assailable on many sides,--a fault in his character--or a weakness--which, at any rate, sometimes offered a lever to move him in directions opposite to the malign influences of Bigot and his associates.

The company rose from the tea-table and moved to the drawing-room, where conversation, music, and a few games of cards whiled away a couple of hours very pleasantly.

Amelie sang exquisitely. The Governor was an excellent musician, and accompanied her. His voice, a powerful tenor, had been strengthened by many a conflict with old Boreas on the high seas, and made soft and flexible by his manifold sympathies with all that is kindly and good and true in human nature.

A song of wonderful pathos and beauty had just been brought down from the wilds of the Ottawa, and become universally sung in New France. A voyageur flying from a band of Iroquois had found a hiding-place on a rocky islet in the middle of the Sept Chutes. He concealed himself from his foes, but could not escape, and in the end died of starvation and sleeplessness. The dying man peeled off the white bark of the birch, and with the juice of berries wrote upon it his death song, which was found long after by the side of his remains. His grave is now a marked spot on the Ottawa. La Complainte de Cadieux had seized the imagination of Amelie. She sang it exquisitely, and to-night needed no pressing to do so, for her heart was full of the new song, composed under such circumstances of woe. Intense was the sympathy of the company, as she began:

"'Petit rocher de la haute montagne, Je viens finir ici cette campagne!

Ah! doux echos, entendez mes soupirs!

En languissant je vais bientot--mourir.'"

There were no dry eyes as she concluded. The last sighs of Cadieux seemed to expire on her lips:

"'Rossignole, va dire a ma maitresse, A mes enfans, qu'un adieu je leur laisse, Que j'ai garde mon amour et ma foi, Et desormais faut renoncer a moi.'"

A few more friends of the family dropped in--Coulon de Villiers, Claude Beauharnais, La Corne St. Luc, and others, who had heard of the lady's departure and came to bid her adieu.

La Corne raised much mirth by his allusions to the Iroquois. The secret was plainly no secret to him. "I hope to get their scalps," said he, "when you have done with them and they with you, Le Gardeur!"

The evening passed on pleasantly, and the clock of the Recollets pealed out a good late hour before they took final leave of their hospitable hostess, with mutual good wishes and adieus, which with some of them were never repeated. Le Gardeur was no little touched and comforted by so much sympathy and kindness. He shook the Bourgeois affectionately by the hand, inviting him to come up to Tilly. It was noticed and remembered that this evening Le Gardeur clung filially, as it were, to the father of Pierre, and the farewell he gave him was tender, almost solemn, in a sort of sadness that left an impress upon all minds. "Tell Pierre--but indeed, he knows we start early," said Le Gardeur, "and the canoes will be waiting on the Batture an hour after sunrise.

The Bourgeois knew in a general way the position of Le Gardeur, and sympathized deeply with him. "Keep your heart up, my boy!" said he on leaving. "Remember the proverb,--never forget it for a moment, Le Gardeur: Ce que Dieu garde est bien garde!"

"Good-by, Sieur Philibert!" replied he, still holding him by the hand.

"I would fain be permitted to regard you as a father, since Pierre is all of a brother to me!"

"I will be a father, and a loving one too, if you will permit me, Le Gardeur," said the Bourgeois, touched by the appeal. "When you return to the city, come home with Pierre. At the Golden Dog, as well as at Belmont, there will be ever welcome for Pierre's friend as for Pierre's self."

The guests then took their departure.

The preparations for the journey home were all made, and the household retired to rest, all glad to return to Tilly. Even Felix Baudoin felt like a boy going back on a holiday. His mind was surcharged with the endless things he had gathered up, ready to pour into the sympathizing ear of Barbara Sanschagrin; and the servants and censitaires were equally eager to return to relate their adventures in the capital when summoned on the King's corvee to build the walls of Quebec.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CANADIAN BOAT-SONG.

"V'la l'bon vent!

V'la l'joli vent!

V'la l'bon vent!

Ma mie m'appelle!

V'la l'bon vent!

V'la l'joli vent!

V'la l'bon vent!

Ma mie m'attend!"

The gay chorus of the voyageurs made the shores ring, as they kept time with their oars, while the silver spray dripped like a shower of diamonds in the bright sunshine at every stroke of their rapid paddles.

The graceful bark canoes, things of beauty and almost of life, leaped joyously over the blue waters of the St. Lawrence as they bore the family of the Lady de Tilly and Pierre Philibert with a train of censitaires back to the old Manor House.

The broad river was flooded with sunshine as it rolled majestically between the high banks crowned with green fields and woods in full leaf of summer. Frequent cottages and villages were visible along the shores, and now and then a little church with its bright spire or belfry marked the successive parishes on either hand.

The tide had already forced its way two hundred leagues up from the ocean, and still pressed irresistibly onward, surging and wrestling against the weight of the descending stream.

The wind too was favorable. A number of yachts and bateaux spread their snowy sails to ascend the river with the tide. They were for the most part laden with munitions of war for the Richelieu on their way to the military posts on Lake Champlain, or merchandise for Montreal to be reladen in fleets of canoes for the trading posts up the river of the Ottawas, the Great Lakes, or, mayhap, to supply the new and far-off settlements on the Belle Riviere and the Illinois.

The line of canoes swept past the sailing vessels with a cheer. The light-hearted crews exchanged salutations and bandied jests with each other, laughing immoderately at the well-worn jokes current upon the river among the rough voyageurs. A good voyage! a clear run! short portages and long rests! Some inquired whether their friends had paid for the bear and buffalo skins they were going to buy, or they complimented each other on their nice heads of hair, which it was hoped they would not leave behind as keepsakes with the Iroquois squaws.

The boat-songs of the Canadian voyageurs are unique in character, and very pleasing when sung by a crew of broad-chested fellows dashing their light birch-bark canoes over the waters rough or smooth, taking them, as they take fortune, cheerfully,--sometimes skimming like wild geese over the long, placid reaches, sometimes bounding like stags down the rough rapids and foaming saults.

Master Jean La Marche, clean as a new pin and in his merriest mood, sat erect as the King of Yvetot in the bow of the long canoe which held the Lady de Tilly and her family. His sonorous violin was coquettishly fixed in its place of honor under his wagging chin, as it accompanied his voice while he chanted an old boat-song which had lightened the labor of many a weary oar on lake and river, from the St. Lawrence to the Rocky Mountains.

Amelie sat in the stern of the canoe, laying her white hand in the cool stream which rushed past her. She looked proud and happy to-day, for the whole world of her affections was gathered together in that little bark.

She felt grateful for the bright sun; it seemed to have dispelled every cloud that lately shaded her thoughts on account of her brother, and she silently blessed the light breeze that played with her hair and cooled her cheek, which she felt was tinged with a warm glow of pleasure in the presence of Pierre Philibert.

She spoke little, and almost thanked the rough voyageurs for their incessant melodies, which made conversation difficult for the time, and thus left her to her own sweet silent thoughts, which seemed almost too sacred for the profanation of words.

An occasional look, or a sympathetic smile exchanged with her brother and her aunt, spoke volumes of pure affection. Once or twice the eyes of Pierre Philibert captured a glance of hers which might not have been intended for him, but which Amelie suffered him to intercept and hide away among the secret treasures of his heart. A glance of true affection--brief, it may be, as a flash of lightning--becomes, when caught by the eyes of love, a real thing, fixed and imperishable forever. A tender smile, a fond word of love's creation, contains a universe of light and life and immortality,--small things, and of little value to others, but to him or her whom they concern more precious and more prized than the treasures of Ind.

Master Jean La Marche, after a few minutes' rest, made still more refreshing by a draught from a suspicious-looking flask, which, out of respect for the presence of his mistress, the Lady de Tilly, he said contained "milk," began a popular boat-song which every voyageur in New France knew as well as his prayers, and loved to his very finger-ends.

The canoe-men pricked up their ears, like troopers at the sound of a bugle, as Jean La Marche began the famous old ballad of the king's son who, with his silver gun, aimed at the beautiful black duck, and shot the white one, out of whose eyes came gold and diamonds, and out of whose mouth rained silver, while its pretty feathers, scattered to the four winds, were picked up by three fair dames, who with them made a bed both large and deep--

"For poor wayfaring men to sleep."

Master Jean's voice was clear and resonant as a church bell newly christened; and he sang the old boat-song with an energy that drew the crews of half-a-dozen other canoes into the wake of his music, all uniting in the stirring chorus:

"Fringue! Fringue sur la riviere!

Fringue! Fringue sur l'aviron!"