_ BOOK II. AMERICA
CHAPTER XV. THE GREAT PEACE
Of the long and bitter journey from the Iroquois towns to Lake St. George, down the Richelieu and thence through the deep snows of the Canadian winter, it boots little to make mention; neither to tell of that devotion of Raoul de Ligny to the newly-rescued lady, already reputed in camp rumor to be of noble English family.
"That
sous-lieutenant; he is
tete montee regarding madame," said Pierre Noir one evening to Jean Breboeuf. "As to that--well, you know Monsieur L'as. Pouf! So much for yon monkey,
par comparaison."
"He is a great
capitaine, Monsieur L'as," said Jean Breboeuf. "Never a better went beyond the Straits."
"But very sad of late."
"Oh,
oui, since the death of his friend, Monsieur
le Capitaine Pembroke--may Mary aid his spirit!"
"Monsieur L'as goes not on the trail again," said Pierre Noir. "At least not while this look is in his eye."
"The more the loss, Pierre Noir; but some day the woods will call to him again. I know not how long it may be, yet some day Mother Messasebe will raise her finger and beckon to Monsieur L'as, and say: 'Come, my son!' 'Tis thus, as you know, Pierre Noir."
Yet at length the straggling settlements at Montreal were reached, and here, after the fashion of the frontier, some sort of
menage was inaugurated for Law and his party. Here they lived through the rest of the winter and through the long, slow spring.
And then set on again the heats of summer, and there came apace the time agreed upon, in the month of August, for the widely heralded assembling of the tribes for the Great Peace; one of the most picturesque, as it was one of the most remarkable and significant meetings of widely diverse human beings, that ever took place within the ken of history.
They came, these savages, now first owning the strength of the invading white men, from all the far and unknown corners of the Western wilderness. They came afoot, and with little trains of dogs, in single canoes, in little groups and growing flotillas and vast fleets of canoes, pushing on and on, down stream, following the tide of the furs down this pathway of more than a thousand miles. The Iroquois, for once mindful of a promise, came in a compact fleet, a hundred canoes strong, and they stalked about the island for days, naked, stark, gigantic, contemptuous of white and red men, of friend and foe alike. The scattered Algonquins, whose villages had been razed by these same savage warriors, came down by scores out of the Northern woods, along little, unknown streams, and over paths with which none but themselves were acquainted. From the North, group joined group, and village added itself to village, until a vast body of people had assembled, whose numbers would have been hard to estimate, and who proved difficult enough to accommodate. Yet from the farther West, adding their numbers to those already gathered, came the fleets of the driven Hurons, and the Ojibways, and the Miamis, and the Outagamies, and the Ottawas, the Menominies and the Mascoutins--even the Illini, late objects of the wrath of the Five Nations. The whole Western wilderness poured forth its savage population, till all the shores of the St. Lawrence seemed one vast aboriginal encampment. These massed at the rendezvous about the puny settlement of Montreal in such numbers that, in comparison, the white population seemed insignificant. Then, had there been a Pontiac or a Tecumseh, had there been one leader of the tribes able to teach the strength of unity, the white settlements of upper America had indeed been utterly destroyed. Naught but ancient tribal jealousies held the savages apart.
With these tribesmen were many prisoners, captives taken in raids all along the thin and straggling frontier; farmers and artisans, peasants and soldiers, women raped from the farms of the Richelieu
censitaires, and wood-rangers now grown savage as their captors and loth to leave the wild life into which they had so naturally grown. It was the first reflex of the wave, and even now the bits of flotsam and jetsam of wild life were fain to cling to the Western shore whither they had been carried by the advancing flood. This was the meeting of the ebb with the sea that sent it forward, the meeting of civilized and savage; and strange enough was the nature of those confluent tides. Whether the red men were yielding to civilization, or the whites all turning savage--this question might well have arisen to an observer of this tremendous spectacle. The wigwams of the different tribes and clans and families were grouped apart, scattered along all the narrow shore back of the great hill, and over the Convent gardens; and among these stalked the native French, clad in coarse cloth of blue, with gaudy belt and buckskins, and cap of fur and moccasins of hide, mingling fraternally with their tufted and bepainted visitors, as well as with those rangers, both envied and hated, the savage
coureurs de bois of the far Northern fur trade; men bearded, silent, stern, clad in breech-clout and leggings like any savage, as silent, as stoical, as hardy on the trail as on the narrow thwart of the canoe.
Savage feastings, riotings and drunkenness, and long debaucheries came with the Great Peace, when once the word had gone out that the fur trade was to be resumed. Henceforth there was to be peace. The French were no longer to raid the little cabins along the Kennebec and the Penobscot. The river Richelieu was to be no longer a red war trail. The English were no longer to offer arms and blankets for the beaver, belonging by right of prior discovery to those who offered French brandy and French beads. The Iroquois were no longer to pursue a timid foe across the great prairies of the valley of the Messasebe. The Ojibways were not to ambush the scattered parties of the Iroquois. The unambitious colonists of New England and New York were to be left to till their stony farms in quiet. Meantime, the fur trade, wasteful, licentious, unprofitable, was to extend onward and outward in all the marches of the West. From one end of the Great River of the West to the other the insignia of France and of France's king were to be erected, and France's posts were to hold all the ancient trails. Even at the mouth of the Great River, forestalling these sullen English and these sluggish English colonists, far to the south in the somber forests and miasmatic marshes, there was to be established one more ruling point for the arms of Louis the Grand. It was a great game this, for which the continent of America was in preparation. It was a mighty thing, this gathering of the Great Peace, this time when colonists and their king were seeing the first breaking of the wave on the shore of an empire alluring, wonderful, unparalleled.
Into this wild rabble of savages and citizens, of priest and soldier and
coureur, Law's friends, Pierre Noir and Jean Breboeuf, swiftly disappeared, naturally, fitly and unavoidably. "The West is calling to us, Monsieur," said Pierre Noir one morning, as he stood looking out across the river. "I hear once more the spirits of the Messasebe. Monsieur, will you come?"
Law shook his head. Yet two days later, as he stood at that very point, there came to him the silent feet of two
coureurs instead of one. Once more he heard in his ear the question: "Monsieur L'as, will you come?"
At this voice he started. In an instant his arms were about the neck of Du Mesne, and tears were falling from the eyes of both in the welcome of that brotherhood which is admitted only by those who have known together arms and danger and hardship, the touch of the hard ground and the sight of the wide blue sky.
"Du Mesne, my friend!"
"Monsieur L'as!"
"It is as though you came from the depths of the sea, Du Mesne!" said Law.
"And as though you yourself arose from the grave, Monsieur!"
"How did you know--?"
"Why, easily. You do not yet understand the ways of the wilderness, where news travels as fast as in the cities. You were hardly below the foot of Michiganon before runners from the Illini had spread the news along the Chicaqua, where I was then in camp. For the rest, the runners brought also news of the Big Peace. I reasoned that the Iroquois would not dare to destroy their captives, that in time the agents of the Government would receive the captives of the Iroquois--that these captives would naturally come to the settlements on the St. Lawrence, since it was the French against whom the Iroquois had been at war; that having come to Montreal, you would naturally remain here for a time. The rest was easy. I fared on to the Straits this spring, and then on down the Lakes. I have sold our furs, and am now ready to account to you with a sum quite as much as we should have expected.
"Now, Monsieur," and Du Mesne stretched out his arm again, pointing to the down-coming flood of the St. Lawrence, "Monsieur, will you come? I see not the St. Lawrence, but the Messasebe. I can hear the voices calling!"
Law dashed his hand across his eyes and turned his head away. "Not yet, Du Mesne," said he. "I do not know. Not yet. I must first go across the waters. Perhaps sometime--I can not tell. But this, my comrades, my brothers, I do know; that never, until the last sod lies on my grave, will I forget the Messasebe, or forget you. Go back, if you will, my brothers; but at night, when you sit by your fireside, think of me, as I shall think of you, there in the great valley. My friends, it is the heart of the world!"
"But, Monsieur--"
"There, Du Mesne--I would not talk to-day. At another time. Brothers, adieu!"
"Adieu, my brother," said the
coureur, his own emotion showing in his eyes; and their hands met again.
"Monsieur is cast down," said Du Mesne to Pierre Noir later, as they reached the beach. "Now, what think you?
"Usually, as you know, Pierre, it is a question of some woman. It reminds me, Wabana was remiss enough when I left her among the Illini with you. Now, God bless my heart, I find her--how think you? With her crucifix lost, cooking for a dirty Ojibway!"
"Mary Mother!" said Pierre Noir, "if it be a matter of a woman--well, God help us all! At least 'tis something that will take Monsieur L'as over seas again."
"'Tis mostly a woman," mused Du Mesne; "but this passeth my wit."
"True, they pass the wit of all. Now, did I ever tell thee about the mission girl at Michilimackinac--but stay! That for another time. They tell me that our comrade, Greysolon du L'hut, is expected in to-morrow with a party from the far end of Superior. Come, let us have the news."
"
Tous les printemps,
Tant des nouvelles,"
hummed Du Mesne, as he flung his arm above the shoulder of the other; and the two so disappeared adown the beach.
Dully, apathetically, Law lived on his life here at Montreal for yet a time, at the edge of that wilderness which had proved all else but Eden. Near to him, though in these guarded times guest by necessity of the good sisters of the Convent, dwelt Mary Connynge. And as for these two, it might be said that each but bided the time. To her Law might as well have been one of the corded Sulpician priests; and she to him, for all he liked, one of the nuns of the Convent garden. What did it all mean; where was it all to end? he asked himself a thousand times; and a thousand times his mind failed him of any answer. He waited, watching the great encampment disappear, first slowly, then swiftly and suddenly, so that in a night the last of the lodges had gone and the last canoe had left the shore. There remained only the hurrying flood of the St. Lawrence, coming from the West.
The autumn came on. Early in November the ships would leave for France. Yet before the beginning of November there came swiftly and sharply the settlement of the questions which racked Law's mind. One morning Mary Connynge was missing from the Convent, nor could any of the sisters, nor the mother superior, explain how or when she had departed!
Yet, had there been close observers, there might have been seen a boat dropping down the river on the early morning of that day. And at Quebec there was later reported in the books of the intendant the shipping, upon the good bark Dauphine, of Lieutenant Raoul de Ligny, sometime officer of the regiment Carignan, formerly stationed in New France; with him a lady recently from Montreal, known very well to Lieutenant de Ligny and his family; and to be in his care
en voyage to France; the name of said lady illegible upon the records, the spelling apparently not having suited the clerk who wrote it, and then forgot it in the press of other things.
Certain of the governor's household, as well as two or three
habitants from the lower town, witnessed the arrival of this lady, who came down from Montreal. They saw her take boat for the bark Dauphine, one of the last ships to go down the river that fall. Yes, it was easily to be established. Dark, with singular, brown eyes,
petite, yet not over small, of good figure--assuredly so much could be said; for obviously the king, kindly as he might feel toward the colony of New France, could not send out, among the young women supplied to the colonists as wives, very many such demoiselles as this; otherwise assuredly all France would have followed the king's ships to the St. Lawrence.
John Law, a grave and saddened man, yet one now no longer lacking in decision, stood alone one day at the parapet of the great rock of Quebec, gazing down the broad expanse of the stream below. He was alone except for a little child, a child too young to know her mother, had death or disaster at that time removed the mother. Law took the little one up in his arms and gazed hard upon the upturned face.
"Catharine!" he said to himself. "Catharine! Catharine!"
"Pardon, Monsieur," said a voice at his elbow. "Surely I have seen you before this?"
Law turned. Joncaire, the ambassador of peace, stood by, smiling and extending his hand.
"Naturally, I could never forget you," said Law.
"Monsieur looks at the shipping," said Joncaire, smiling. "Surely he would not be leaving New France, after so luckily escaping the worst of her dangers?"
"Life might be the same for me over there as here," replied Law. "As for my luck, I must declare myself the most unfortunate man on earth."
"Your wife, perhaps, is ill?"
"Pardon, I have none."
"Pardon, in turn, Monsieur--but, you see--the child?"
"It is the child of a savage woman," said Law.
Joncaire pulled aside the infant's hood. He gave no sign, and a nice indifference sat in his query: "
Une belle sauvage?"
"
Belle sauvage!" _