ALL that pleasant afternoon, while a spring sun warmed seeds in the ground and trees visibly unfurled green pennons, Montrealists stood in groups looking solemnly up-river where the expedition canoes had disappeared, or flinging their hands in excited talk. “They talked too much,” says one of their chroniclers. For the expedition was to be kept secret, particularly from all passing Indians.

There was no wind to cut away tremulous heat simmering at the base of the mountain. Grass could be smelled, with the delicious odor of the earth in which it was quickening. On such a day the soul of man accomplishes its yearly metempsychosis, and finds itself in a body beating with new life.

Jouaneaux carried his happy countenance from group to group along the single street of Montreal, standing with respectful attention when his superiors talked, or chiming in with authority when his equals held parley instead of pushing their business.

Before night a small fleet of Indian canoes came up the river and landed on the wharf of Montreal forty warriors and a very young girl. The chief, leading the girl by the hand, stalked proudly westward along the street, his feathers dancing, his muscular legs and moccasined feet having the flying step of Mercury. His braves trod in line behind him.

“All Hurons,” remarked Jouaneaux to his crony, a lime-burner.

“And should be seeding their island of Orleans at this season,” said the lime-burner, “if Quebec set them any example but to quarrel and take to the woods.”

“That chief can be nobody but Annahotaha,” said Jouaneaux. “Now where dost thou say he stole that brown beauty of a little Sister?”

“He stole her,” responded the lime-burner, “from a full-blooded French girl below Three Rivers, that some Quebec Jesuit mixed up with him in marriage. My cousin lives in the same cÔte, and little liking hath she for this half-breed who scorns her mother’s people and calls herself a princess.”

“Good hater art thou of Quebec Jesuits,” said Jouaneaux, spreading his approving smile beyond dots of white teeth around large margins of pink gums. “But Quebec Jesuits have done worse work than mixing the blood of this princess. What a little Sister of St. Joseph she would make!” he exclaimed, stretching his neck after the girl and disclosing the healthy depths of his mouth.

“You never look at a woman but to take her measure for the Sisterhood of St. Joseph,” laughed the lime-burner.

“And to what better life could she be measured?” demanded the nuns’ retainer, instantly aggressive, “or what better Sisterhood?”

“There be no better women,” yielded the lime-burner.

All night Sister BrÉsoles and Sister MacÉ in turns kneeled beside the prostrate woman in the chapel. She was not disturbed by offers of food or consolation, for they respected her posture and her vigil. The young novices, of whom there were a few, had duties set for them elsewhere. All night a taper burned upon the altar and a nun knelt by it, her shadow wavering long and brown; and the woman’s body, with its arms stretched out on the stones, stirred only at intervals when the hands grasped and wrung each other in renewed prayer.

Before matins Sister BrÉsoles left her support of this afflicted spirit to devote herself to the revival of the body, by concocting a broth for which she is yet celebrated in Church annals on account of the Divine assistance she received in its preparation. The very odor should rouse Claire from her long fast and cause her to eat and rise, bearing her burdens.

During Sister BrÉsoles’s absence another figure came in and bowed before the altar.

Conscious of physical disturbance, Claire turned her vacant look towards it, as she had done each time the nuns changed vigils.

This was no serene Sister of St. Joseph, but a dark young girl also flattening herself on the pavement, and writhing about in rages of pain.

“My child, what ails you?” whispered Claire, compassion making alive the depths of her eyes.

But the girl, without heeding her, ground a few prayers between convulsive teeth, and then beat her head upon the stones.

By degrees the silence and self-restraint of a woman not greatly her elder, lying in trouble as abject as her own, had its quieting effect on her. Tears, scantily distilled in her, ran the length of her eyelid rims and fell in occasional drops on the floor.

Their cheeks resting on a level, the two unhappy creatures looked at each other across a stone flag.

“Has your father or your brother gone with Dollard?” whispered Claire.

“Madame, my father goes to fight the Iroquois.”

“I thought it.”

“Madame, I have just been making a vow.”

“So have I.”

“I will follow my father wherever he is going, come life or come death, and nobody shall prevent me.”

Claire rose upon her knees.

Sister BrÉsoles opened the chapel door, carrying in a bowl of soup as she would have carried it to a soldier whose wounds refused to allow his being lifted.

The patient was in evident thanksgiving. Daylight had just begun to glimmer in. Claire’s face shone with the passionate white triumph which religious ascetics of that day looked forward to as the crowning result of their vigils. Flushed with reactionary hope, she rose to her feet as if the pavement had left no stiffness in her muscles, and met the nun.

“St. Joseph and all the Holy Family give you peace, mademoiselle.”

“Peace hath been granted me, Sister. My prayer is answered.”

“Great is the power of the Holy Family. But after your long vigil you will need this strengthening broth which I have made for you.”

“Sister, you are kind. Let me take it to your refectory. I know the place. And may this young girl attend me?”

“I will carry it myself, mademoiselle,” said Sister Judith, “to our rude parlor, if you will follow me up the stairs. The refectory is somewhat chilly, and in the parlor we have a fire kindled. And you may bathe your face and hands before eating your soup.”

Up a stairway Claire groped behind the nun, and came into a barn-like huge room, scant of comforts except an open fire, which Jouaneaux had but finished preparing entirely for her. The cells of the nuns were built along one side of this room, and from the cells they now emerged going devoutly to matins.

“Touching the half-breed girl of whom you spoke,” said Sister BrÉsoles, lingering to put a basin of water and coarse clean towel within reach of her guest, “she shall come to you as soon as she hath finished her morning devotions. Her father is chief of the Hurons, and hath placed her here as a novice. We have many girls come,” added Sister BrÉsoles with a light sigh, “but few remain to bear the hardships of life in a frontier convent.”

“Girls are ungrateful creatures,” said Claire, “bent on their own purposes, and greedy of what to them seems happiness. I am myself so. And if I do or say what must offend you, forgive me, Sister.”

She unfastened her necklace and held it up—a slender rope braided of three strings of seed pearls and fastened by a ruby.

“This is a red sapphire, Sister, and has been more than a hundred years in the house of—”

She suppressed “Laval-Montmorency,” and pressed her necklace upon the nun’s refusing palm.

“Why do you offer me this, mademoiselle?”

“Because from this day gems and I part company forever. That is the only hereditary ornament I brought with me into New France. Enrich some shrine with it if you have no need to turn it into money for your convent.”

“Our convent is very poor, mademoiselle,” replied Sister BrÉsoles, divided between acceptance and refusal. “But we want no rich gifts from those who make their retirement with us. Also, the commandant, your brother, left with us more value than our poor hospitality can return to you.”

“Yet be intreated, Sister,” urged Claire. “I want it to be well placed, but no more about my throat.”

Sister BrÉsoles, with gentle thanks, therefore,—“It shall still do honor to your house in works of charity, mademoiselle,”—accepted the gift and went directly to matins.

When Claire had washed her face and hands and tightened the loose puffs of her hair, she took her bowl of soup and sat before the fire, eating it with the hearty appetite of a woman risen from despair to resolution.

The odor of a convent, how natural it was to her!—that smell of stale incense intertwined with the scentless breath of excessive cleanliness. Through the poor joints of the house she could hear matin-chanting arise from the chapel. Daylight grew stronger and ruddier, and a light fog from the river showed opal changes.

On moccasined feet, and so deft of hand that Claire heard her neither open nor close the door, the half-breed girl came to the hearth. A brown and a white favor in woman beauty were then set in strong contrast. Both girls were slenderly shaped, virginal and immature lines still predominating. Claire was transparently clear of skin, her hair was silken white like dandelion down, and the brown color of her eyes, not deeply tinged with pigment, showed like shadow on water; while the half-breed burned in rich pomegranate dyes, set in black and fawn tints. They looked an instant at each other in different mood from their first gaze across the flagstone.

“Your father is an Indian chief, the Sister tells me,” said Claire.

“My father is Étienne Annahotaha, chief of the Hurons.”

“And what is your name?”

“Massawippa.”

“Massawippa, the Virgin sent you into the chapel to answer my prayer.”

The half-breed, standing in young dignity, threw a dark-eyed side-glance at this perfect lily of French civilization. She was not yet prepared to be used as an answer to the prayers of any French woman.

“Did you know that an expedition started yesterday to the Ottawa River?” inquired Claire.

Massawippa shook her head.

“But your father, also—he is going to fight the Iroquois?”

“I know not where they are, but I shall find out,” said Massawippa.

“I know,” said Claire. “The Iroquois are coming down the Ottawa.”

“From their winter trapping,” the girl assented with a nod.

“Your father, therefore, will follow Dollard’s expedition.”

“My father has but forty-three men,” Massawippa said gloomily.

“Child,” said Claire, “Dollard has only sixteen!”

“And, madame, the Iroquois are like leaves for number. But I did not mean our Hurons are forty-three strong. Mituvemeg,[6] the Algonquin, meets my father here.”

“Do you know this country? Have you lived much in the woods?”

“Yes, madame.”

“Have you ever been up the Ottawa River?”

“Yes, madame. The very last summer my father took me up the Ottawa beyond Two Mountains Lake.”

“Two Mountains Lake?”

“Yes, madame; a widening of the river, just as Lake St. Louis is a widening of the St. Lawrence.”

“Could we go up this river in a boat, you and I?”

Massawippa looked steadily at Claire, searching her for cowardice or treachery. The Laval-Montmorency smiled back.

“Twenty-four hours, Massawippa, I lay on the chapel pavement, praying the Virgin to send me guide or open some way for me to follow the French expedition up that Ottawa River. You threw yourself beside me and answered my prayer by your own vow. We are bound to the same destination.”

The half-breed girl looked with actual solicitude at the tender white beauty of her fellow-plotter.

“Madame, it will be very hard for you. You and I could not, in a boat, pass the rapids of Ste. Anne at the head of this island; they test the skill of our best Huron paddlers.”

“Can we then go by land?”

“We shall have to cross one arm of the Ottawa to the mainland. Montreal is on an island, madame. Two or three leagues of travel would bring us to that shore near the mouth of the Ottawa.”

Sister MacÉ, unobtrusive as dawn, opened the door and stole softly in from matins, breaking up the conference. She called Massawippa to learn how pallets must be aired and cells made tidy. The half-breed girl saw all this care with contempt, having for years cast out of mind her bed of leaves and blankets as soon as she arose from it.

Claire went with unpromising novice and easy teacher to breakfast in the refectory, and afterwards by herself to confession—a confession with its mental reservation as to her plans; but the rite was one which her religion imposed upon her under the circumstances. She had been even less candid towards the nuns in allowing them to receive and address her as Dollard’s sister. The prostration of grief and reaction of intense resolve benumbed her, indeed, to externals. But in that day of pious deception, when the churchmen themselves were full of evasive methods, a daughter of conventual training may have been less sensitive to false appearances than women of Claire’s high nature bred in a later age. She saw no more of Massawippa until nightfall, but lay in the cell assigned to her, resting with shut eyes, and allowing no thought to wander to the men paddling towards that lonely river.

All day the season grew; shower chased sun and sun dried shower, and in the afternoon Jouaneaux told Sister BrÉsoles that he had weeded the garden of a growth which would surprise her.

At dusk, however, he brought the usual small log up to the parlor, and with it news which exceeded his tale of weeding.

Sister BrÉsoles was folding her tired hands in meditation there, and Massawippa, sullen and lofty from her first day’s probation, curled on the floor in a corner full of shadows.

“Honored Superior,” said Jouaneaux after placing his log, “who, say’st thou, did boldly walk up to the governor to-day?”

“Perhaps yourself, Jouaneaux. You were ever bold enough.”

“I was there, honored Superior, about a little matter of garden seeds, and I stood by and hearkened, as it behooved the garrison of a convent to do; for there comes me in this chief of the Hurons, Annahotaha, swelling like—”

Jouaneaux suppressed “cockerel about to crow.” His wandering glance caught Massawippa sitting in her blanket. The Sisters of St. Joseph were at that time too poor to furnish any distinguishing garments to their novices; and so insecure were these recruits from the world that any uniform would have been thrown away upon them. With the facility of Frenchmen, Jouaneaux substituted,

—“like a mighty warrior, as he is known to be. And he asks the governor, does Annahotaha, for a letter to Dollard; and before he leaves the presence he gets his letter.”

Sister BrÉsoles raised a finger, being mindful of two pairs of listening ears, and two souls just sinking to the peace of resignation.

“Honored Superior,” exclaimed Jouaneaux, in haste to set bulwarks around his statement, “you may ask Father Dollier de Casson if this be not so, for he had just landed from the river parishes, and was with the governor. V’lÀ,” said Jouaneaux, spreading an explanatory hand, “if Annahotaha and his braves join Dollard without any parchment of authority, what share will Dollard allow them in the enterprise? Being a shrewd chief and a man of affairs, Annahotaha knew he must bear commission.”

“Come down to the refectory and take thy supper and discharge thy news there,” Sister BrÉsoles exclaimed, starting up and swiftly leaving the room.

Jouaneaux obeyed her, keeping his punctilious foot far behind the soft rush of her garments.

He dared not wink at the nun, even under cover of dusk and to add zest to his further recital; but he winked at the wall separating him from Massawippa and said slyly on the stairs:

“Afterwards, however, honored Superior, I heard the governor tell Father de Casson that he wrote it down to Dollard to accept or refuse Annahotaha, as he saw fit.”

As soon as the door was closed Claire came running out of her cell and met Massawippa at the hearth, silently clapping her hands in swift rapture as a humming-bird beats its wings.

“Now thou see’st how the Virgin answers prayer, Massawippa!”

The half-breed, sedately eager, said:

“We must cross the arm of the Ottawa and follow their course up that river. Madame, I have troubled my mind much about a boat. For if we got over the Ottawa arm and followed the right-hand shore, have you thought how possible it is that they may fix their camp on the opposite side?”

“Can we not take a boat with us from Montreal?”

“And carry it two or three leagues across the country? For I cannot paddle up the Ste. Anne[7] current. But if we could get one here it would draw suspicion on us and we might be followed. I see but one way. We must depend upon that walking woman above Carillon; and if she be dead, and they camp on the other side, we must raft across the Ottawa. But if we must first make a raft to cross at the mouth, how much time will be lost!”

“Massawippa, we have vowed to follow this expedition, and with such good hap as Heaven sends us we shall follow it. May we not start to-morrow?”

“Madame, before we start there are things to prepare. We must eat on the way.”

“What food shall we carry?”

“Bread and smoked eels would keep us alive. I can perhaps buy these with my wampum girdle,” suggested Massawippa, who held the noble young dame beside her to be as dowerless as a Huron princess, and thought it no shame so to be.

“Why need you do that?” inquired Claire. “I have two or three gold louis left of the few I brought from France.”

“Gold, madame! Gold is so scarce in this land we might attract too much attention by paying for our supplies with it.”

“I have nothing else, so we must hazard it. And what must we take beside food and raiment?”

“Madame, we cannot carry any garments.”

“But, Massawippa, I cannot go to Dollard all travel-stained and ragged!”

“If we find him, madame, he will not think of your dress. Is he wedded to you?”

Claire’s head sunk down in replying.

“He is wedded to glory. Men care more for glory than they care for us, Massawippa.”

“Madame,” said the younger, her mouth settling to wistfulness, “the more they care for glory the more we love them. My father is great. If he was a common Indian little could I honor him, whatever penance the priest laid upon me.”

“Yes, Dollard is my husband. He is my Dollard,” said Claire.

“The nuns call you mademoiselle.”

“I have not told them.”

“They might see!” asserted Massawippa, slightingly. “Do women lie in deadly anguish before the altar for brothers?” she demanded, speaking as decidedly from her inexperience as any young person of a later century, “or for detestable young men who wish to be accepted as lovers?”

“Assuredly not,” said Claire, smiling.

“But fathers, they are a different matter. And in your case, madame, husbands. We shall need other things besides bread and eels. For example, two knives.”

“To cut our bread with?” inquired Claire.

“No; to cut our enemies with!” Massawippa replied, with preoccupied eye which noted little the shudder of the European.

“O Massawippa! they may be engaged with the Iroquois even now. Dollard has been gone two days.”

“Have no fear of that, madame. There will be no fighting until Annahotaha reaches the expedition,” assumed the chief’s daughter with a high air most laughable to her superior. And after keen meditation she added: “We might start to-morrow daybreak if we but had our supplies ready.”

“Massawippa,” exclaimed Claire, “how do you barter with merchants? Can we not send for them and buy our provisions at once?”

“Madame, send for the merchants? You make me laugh! Very cautiously will I have to slip from this place to that; and perhaps I cannot then buy all we need, especially with gold louis. They may, however, think coureurs de bois have come to town. And now at dusk is a better time than in broad daylight.”

Claire went in haste to her casket, which stood in the nuns’ parlor, and selected from it things which she might not have the chance of removing later. These she put in her cell, and came back to Massawippa with her hand freighted.

“How much, madame?” the half-breed inquired as pieces were turned with a clink upon her own palm.

“All. Three louis.”

“Take one back, then. Two will be too many, though one might not be enough. Madame, that Frenchman who feeds the nuns’ pigs and tends this fire, he will let me out; and what I buy I will hide outside the HÔtel-Dieu.”