The Project Gutenberg eBook, Montlivet, by Alice Prescott Smith

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Title: Montlivet

Author: Alice Prescott Smith

Release Date: September 23, 2005 [eBook #16733]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTLIVET***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

MONTLIVET

by

ALICE PRESCOTT SMITH

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Houghton, Mifflin and Co.

1907

TO

M. C. H. AND A. E. H.

CONTENTS

I. THE KEY II. THE CAPTIVE III. BEHIND THE COMMANDANT'S DOOR IV. IN THE OTTAWA CAMP V. A DECISION VI. DAME OPPORTUNITY VII. THE BEGINNING VIII. PARTNERS IX. WESTWARD X. I WAKE A SLEEPER XI. MARY STARLING XII. A COMPACT XIII. WE REACH THE ISLANDS XIV. A PROVISIONAL BARGAIN XV. I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER XVI. THE STORM XVII. AFTER THE STORM XVIII. IN WHICH I USE OPPORTUNITY XIX. IN THE MIST XX. WHAT I FOUND XXI. THE PIVOT XXII. THE PRICE OF SLEEP XXIII. I ENCOUNTER MIXED MOTIVES XXIV. I MEET VARIOUS WELCOMES XXV. OVER CADILLAC'S TABLE XXVI. FROM HOUR TO HOUR XXVII. IN COUNCIL XXVIII. CHILDREN OF OPPORTUNITY XXIX. I FOLLOW MY PATH XXX. THE MEANING OF CONQUEST XXXI. THE UNDESERVED XXXII. I TELL THE WOMAN XXXIII. TO US AND TO OUR CHILDREN

MONTLIVET

CHAPTER I

THE KEY

The May sun was shining on Michillimackinac, and I, Armand de Montlivet, was walking the strip of beach in front of the French garrison.

I did not belong to Michillimackinac. I had come in only the day before with two canoes and four men, and I was bound for the beaver lands further west. A halt was necessary, for the trip had been severe, and remembering that it was necessity, and not idleness, that held me, I was enjoying the respite. My heart was light, and since the heart is mistress of the heels, I walked somewhat trippingly. I was on good terms with myself at the moment. My venture was going well, and I was glad to be alone, and breathe deep of the sweet spring air, and let my soul grow big with the consciousness of what it would like to do. So content was I, that I was annoyed to see La Mothe-Cadillac approach.

Yet Cadillac was important to me then. He was commandant at Michillimackinac,—the year was 1695,—and so was in control of the strategic point of western New France. The significance of all that he stood for, and all that he might accomplish, filled my thought as he swaggered toward me now, and I said to myself, somewhat complacently, that, with all his air of importance, I had a fuller conception than he of what lay in his palm.

He hailed me without preface. "Where do you find food for your laughter in this forsaken country, Montlivet? I have watched you swagger up and down with a smile on your face for the last hour. What is the jest?"

In truth, there was no jest in me by the time he finished. My own thought had just called him a swaggerer, and now he clapped the same phrase back at me.

"There are more swaggerers upon this beach than I," I cried hotly, and
I felt my blood rise.

My tone was more insulting than my words, and Cadillac, too, grew red. I saw the veins upon his neck begin to swell, and all my childish irritation vanished.

"Come, monsieur," I hastened; "I was wrong. But I meant no harm, and surely here is a jest fit for your laughter, that two grown men should stand and swell at each other like turkeycocks, all because they are drunk with the air of a May day. Come, here is my hand."

"But you said that I"—

"And what if I did?" I interrupted. I had fallen into step, and was pacing by his side. "What is there in the term that we should hold it in slight esteem? I swagger. What does that mean, after all, but my acknowledgment of the presence of Dame Opportunity, and my admission that I would like to impress her; to draw her eye in my direction. Surely that is laudable, monsieur."

Cadillac laughed. His tempers were the ruffle of a passing breeze upon deep water. "So you think that I swagger to meet opportunity? Well, if I do, I get but little out of it. Sometimes I push myself near enough to pluck at the sleeve of the dame; oftener she passes me by."

"Yet she gave you this key to an empire," I suggested. I had been rude, and I repented it, and more than that, there was something in the man that tempted me to offer him flattery even as I desire to give sweets to an engaging child.

But this cajolery he swept away with a fling of his heavy arm. "The key to an empire!" he echoed contemptuously. "They are fine words, and the mischief is that they are true. Yet food in my stomach, and money in my pocket, would mean more to me just now. I must speak to this Indian. Will you wait for me, monsieur? I have business with you."

I bowed, and resumed my walk. "The key to an empire!" I said my own words over, and could have blushed for their tone of bombast. They were true, but they sounded false, I looked at my surroundings, and marveled that a situation that was of real dignity could wear so mean a garb. The sandy cove where I stood was on the mainland, and sheltered four settlements. Behind lay the forest; in front stretched Lake Huron, a waterway that was our only link with the men and nations we had left behind. The settlements were contiguous in body, but even my twenty-four hours' acquaintance had shown me that they were leagues apart in mind. There were a French fort, a Jesuit convent, a village of Ottawas, and, barred by the aristocracy of a palisade, a village of Hurons. The scale of precedence was plain to read. The huts of the savages were wattled, interlaced of poles and bark; the French buildings were of wood, but roofed with rough cedar; the only houses with board roofs were those of the Jesuits. In later times when I found Father Carheil hard to understand, I used to say to myself that he was not to be held too strictly to account for his contradictions, for though one learns to think great thoughts in the wilderness, it is not done easily when there is sawed lumber to shut away the sky.

Cadillac came back to me in a few moments. He had lost his swelling port, and was frowning with thought. "I saw you in the Huron camp, Montlivet," he said. "Do you understand their speech?"

Now this was a question that I thought it as well to put by. "Would you call it speech?" I demurred. "It sounded more like snarling."

"Then you do understand it?"

I kicked at the dogs at my feet. "Frowns are a common language. I could understand them, at least. The camp is restless. Are they hungry?"

Cadillac shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly. But it is not hunger that sagamité or maize cakes can reach. Would a taste of Iroquois broth put them in better condition, do you think?"

I turned away somewhat sickened. "It is a savage remedy,"