Читать книгу High Towers - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 19

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It had been decided earlier in the evening that the members of the family would remain at the château until after the funeral services with the exception of D’Iberville, who still had so much to attend to in Montreal that it would be necessary for him to depart immediately after a morning conference of the family. He found that he had many things to do in Longueuil also, in particular a conversation with De Mariat which lasted for hours. So much time was consumed in one way and another that it was quite late in the evening when he was able to attend to a matter which had been very much on his mind. He wanted to say a prayer beside the body of the unfortunate baker.

Acting on a hint from one of the château guards, D’Iberville made his way through the darkness to the glacière. An instinctive caution made him stop at the edge of the trees.

“Who is there?” he asked.

The smith answered, “We are keeping watch, M’sieur Pierre.”

“St. Peter of Alcantara!” exclaimed D’Iberville. “This is a curious state of affairs. I was told you had the body here. Is that Jacques Descaries?” It was typical of the tact he employed in all his dealings that he did not address the smith as Sooty-Arms.

“Yes, I am Descaries. The builder’s boy is sharing the watch with me.”

“That boy again!” D’Iberville began to laugh. “Truly, I never expect to be alone in this life or the next. I’m sure he’ll be right behind me when I pace my quarterdeck on Mort Bay. He’ll be on my heels when I climb to the gate where St. Pierre divides the flocking souls.” He began to make his way cautiously through the trees and the underbrush toward the ice pile which was serving Twelve-and-One-More as his bier. “This kind of thing, Philippe, isn’t for a boy of your age.”

Philippe repeated what he had said earlier. “He was my friend, M’sieur Pierre.”

D’Iberville found this answer to his liking. “And that is a very good reason. It seems that you are a fellow of stout heart, my small Philippe.” The interest he took in everyone about him manifested itself. “You were born at Lachine, I think.”

“Yes, M’sieur Pierre.”

“Your parents were killed in the massacre but you were saved.”

“Yes, M’sieur Pierre. I was less than a year old. After the Iroquois had gone I was found under a tree at the edge of the village.”

“I knew all the men of Lachine. Which was your father?”

“No one knows. You see, M’sieur Pierre, there were four boys of my age and I’m the only one of them alive. All the parents were killed or carried off and so there was no one left who could be sure which of the four I was.”

“And nothing has been found out since?”

The boy answered in a low tone of voice. “No, m’sieur. Nothing has been found out.”

“Then the name Philippe may not be your right one?”

“They didn’t want to make a mistake and so they gave me the names of all four of the boys. I am Philippe-Christophe-Marcel-Amaury.”

Despite the danger of their situation, D’Iberville began to laugh. “It’s much like hoisting a full head of sail on a kelp or a buss to give so many names to such a small boy. I assume you like Philippe best?”

“Yes, m’sieur. But my master wanted to call me Thomas because he says he will make an architect of me. He calls me that sometimes still. Cécile was set on Philippe because she was in love once with a man of that name. But when any of them are angry at me they call me Amaury. Why it should be so I can’t say. And when there are visitors and they want to be very polite, they always call me Christophe.”

“And why is that?”

“I think the parents of the one who was christened Christophe were of the best standing of the four. So it sounds a little better, they think.”

D’Iberville laughed again. “You must have a difficult time, answering to so many names. I think I shall make a soldier of you, my stout Philippe.” He turned then in the direction of the smith, who had made no sound while the conversation was going on. “I’ve always been curious about you, Jacques Descaries. I’ve heard what is said, of course, that you had a reason for leaving France and that you occupied a different station in life there.”

“That is what is said about me.” There was a pause and then the smith added, “It is true.”

“I’ve a very strong suspicion you served in the French army.”

“That also is true. I served through three campaigns in Flanders and one in Italy.”

There was a new note of dignity in the smith’s voice which caused his questioner to proceed carefully. “It may very well be then that Jacques Descaries is not your real name.”

“It may very well be.”

D’Iberville remained silent for several moments. Then he began again. “As you’ve had so much experience, I can’t understand why you stay here as blacksmith instead of lending me your aid in the campaigns ahead ...”

“I’m fifty-eight years of age. I still have strength in my arms, enough to carry on my trade. But could I hold my own in a campaign such as you will fight? I might be worse than useless, for on the march a party is no faster than its slowest member.”

“That’s quite true.” D’Iberville nodded his head in the dark, mentally wiping the name of Jacques Descaries from his list of possible recruits. “But what of the Mississippi venture? It may lead to some fighting but it’s more likely to provide as its main excitement the protection of a few shiploads of settlers. It’s a land of sun and flowers and gentle winds. It might be a pleasant place for a man of fifty-eight.”

Although he could not see in the darkness, D’Iberville was aware that the smith had given his head a negative shake. “That is small inducement, Sieur d’Iberville. My blood may be thin and there may be an occasional twinge of rheumatism in my joints but I’ve come to love the hardiness of this land of ours.” All trace of the slovenly use of the language into which he had fallen was gone. He was speaking the tongue of the universities. “Is there anything to equal a crisp winter day when the snow has covered the trees and has piled up to the window sills or even higher, and the sun makes the snow glisten as though the beneficent God has showered diamonds on the earth? You spoke of gentle winds. I love the wind best when it comes straight from the north and howls through the trees. Is there any sound as lovely as sleigh bells on a frosty day? I couldn’t be happy if I were no longer able to see the slow flight of whisky-jack and crossbill against a sky which is winter gray.” It was apparent that he was indulging in more shakes of the head. “This land is in my blood, Sieur d’Iberville. I am going to die here.”

D’Iberville had been staring intently in the direction from which the cultivated voice came. “There’s much truth in what you say,” he declared at the close. “This country, this beautiful New France, brings out all that is good in men. Consider the missionaries. If they stayed at home they would spend their lives as humble curés, striving to bring light into the sour minds of country clods. But they come here, they go out and live among the savages, where they are scorned, beaten, subjected to every hardship and indignity. They live on loathsome messes of half-cooked dog. And in the end, perhaps, they die heroically at the stake, their eyes filled with the glory of martyrdom!” He had been speaking rapidly and he now indulged in a pause for breath. “Consider Adam Dollard and his companions, and the little Madeleine de Verchères. Consider my father. If he had remained in Normandy he would have been an innkeeper all his life, bowing and scraping and humbling himself. But in this miraculous land he became a great man, wise and successful and noble. He could never have married as fine a woman as my mother if he had stayed in France.”

“M’sieur Pierre,” said the boy eagerly, “tell us how Old M’sieur Charles made the Iroquois let him go after he was taken prisoner.”

The conqueror of Newfoundland seemed quite content to repeat this story which had become one of the favorite legends of the colony. “For years,” he began, “the old women of the Long House had been gathering wood to burn Charles le Moyne at the stake, Akouessan, as they called him. They knew he was the one man they had most to fear. He was wise in their ways and wise also in the life of the forest. He could talk many Indian languages, and best of all their own. And then one day they caught him, and they started back down the Richelieu River to their own land. They were wild with excitement, you may be sure. As they paddled they whispered among themselves, grinning and tasting already the sweetness of their triumph. But after a time they were less happy about it. My father was talking to them, telling them of the disasters which would befall them if they killed him. His people would come in canoes which were taller than trees and with big guns which roared like thunder. The Indians tried to close their ears to what he was saying. They laughed and jabbered and joked about how they would put him to the torture. And all the time his voice went on, telling them the same thing over and over again. Finally they stopped talking and the energy seemed to have gone out of their arms.”

“At the same time,” went on D’Iberville, who had something of the poet in him, as all great fighting men and inspired leaders have, “another voice was speaking to them, a voice from the feeble bushes in their own minds. It kept saying: ‘Heed what he is saying. Terrible vengeance will fall on the people of the Long House if this man is killed.’ It became too much for them. They couldn’t resist the two voices, that in their own minds and that of wise old Charles le Moyne. They held a council, whispering back and forth in the canoe, and then they turned it around and started back for the mouth of the river. They delivered my father over to a party of friendly Indians, begged his forgiveness, and then set off in the other direction, paddling furiously as though all the hob-thrusts of the woods and Matshi Skoueow herself were coming on the wind behind them!”

There was silence for a moment and then D’Iberville shook his head proudly. “From that you will know the kind of man my father was. And now tell me, how did you like the story?”

The boy answered, “It is one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard, M’sieur Pierre.”

D’Iberville had been sitting at one end of the ice cache. He got to his feet now and began beating the damp sawdust from the tails of his coat. “It’s time to go. If anything happens during the night, fire a gun and I’ll be with you in a trice. I sleep light.”

He bent one knee beside the improvised bier and murmured a prayer for the soul of the dead man. “Farewell, François Dandin,” he said at the finish. “You were a good man. You were both gentle and brave, my old friend. I shall always miss you.”