Charles Heavysege

While you here do snoring lie

Open-ey'd conspiracy

His time doth take:

If of life you keep a care,

Shake off slumber, and beware:

Awake! Awake!

The Tempest.

Amongst the seigniories contiguous to the eastern extremity of the island of Montreal, lies that of Montboeuf. Its present owner was AndrÉ Duchatel, a descendent of the Sieur Duchatel, a cadet of an ancient French noble family, to whom the seigniory was granted by royal letters patent, about the middle of the seventeenth century. But if any nobility of soul, or refinement of aspect existed in the first of the Canadian dynasty of Duchatel, it had not been transmitted to the living representative of the line. As the long hung-up sword or unused ploughshare, lose their brightness and edge from want of use, perhaps these qualities of mind and body had disappeared for want of a fitter field for their display. AndrÉ Duchatel, seigneur of Montboeuf, was a vulgar looking, short, broad-set, florid figure, of fifty years or so; material in his tastes, in disposition obstinate and narrow-minded, unenlarged by education; shy with strangers, yet fond of good fellowship with his acquaintance, and, with much reason, accounted to be rich. He was a widower, but lived in a kind of surly, patriarchal state, in the midst of three sons and a daughter; the former being dissipated and sensual, the latter of a showy person, but in character, superficial, vain, vindictive, proud.

An intimacy had long existed between the houses of Montigny and Duchatel, which, in spite of their different genius, had for generations continued as it were to shake hands across the island. The latter family, though equal to the former in wealth and pedigree, secretly acknowledged it as the superior, and with a view to an alliance between the two, Seraphine Duchatel, even when a child, was a frequent visitor at Mainville; her relations hoping that thereby, she and Claude Montigny might become inspired with a mutual liking, the prelude to their desired union.

This union, it was understood, was to be cemented on the part of Duchatel, by the gift, as her marriage portion, of a tract of land adjoining the seigniory of Mainville, and at present the property of AndrÉ Duchatel; but which, at the nuptials, would be added to the Montigny manor, as a sort of arriÈre fief, and so gratify the craving of the elder Montigny for territorial aggrandizement. The splendid person of Claude had long ago caught the slight affections of Seraphine, who in her visits to Mainville, would hang upon him, much to his distaste, and persist to make him her reluctant cavalier, though neither her blandishments nor his father's wishes could induce him to return these visits, or appear to reciprocate her preference. Nor would a closer and wider acquaintance with the Duchatels have lessened his reluctance. The eldest son, Samson, was a colossal bully, dividing his time between field sports, intemperance, and intrigues with the daughters of the censitors on his father's seigniory; or in yet lower illicit amours with the peasant girls of the manorial village; varied by occasional journeys, made more for debauchery than business, to the city of Montreal. The second scion of the house, Pierre, was a good-enough looking, and not ill-disposed youth; whom his father, as if willing to offer up his choicest lamb for the sins of the family fold, had intended for the church. But the former had far other intentions towards the fair than absolving them from their peccadilloes, and entertained other ideas of foreign travel than that of going on distant Indian missions; whilst the youngest brother, Alphonse, was an unbroken colt and madcap, articled to one of the principal legal firms in the city. Although in years he was but ancle deep, he was already in potations full five fathoms; a worthy graduate of the licentiousness of the town, and boon companion of the dissolute Narcisse; whom, in a giddy moment he had made acquainted with the family matrimonial design on young Montigny. Narcisse, in his turn, had a domestic story, that instinct, revenge, and a mother's command impelled him to relate, and which he told to the rollicking, but now attentive Alphonse, with a wicked glee, raised by the prospect of mischief. A discovery had been made by his brooding and despised parent. Chance had thrown in her way an opportunity for which she had watched for years. Mona Macdonald had visited the advocate at his dwelling, and her presence had stirred not only the womanly curiosity of the lynx-eyed Babet Blais, but her malicious jealousy of one whom she could never but regard as a hateful and favored rival. So, overhearing them in earnest conversation in the library, she, with the unrestrained enjoyment of a low, untutored nature, stole to the door, that was slightly ajar, and there, with her ear applied to the interstice, learned the circumstance of the discovered interview between Claude and Amanda at Stillyside, with their plighted troth, not disapproved of by the advocate. Swelling with envy and anger, and recollecting what Narcisse had told her of the predilection and hopes of Alphonse Duchatel's sister in regard to Claude Montigny, she, with an intent to dash the proud prospect which seemed to be opening before the child of an odious—and as she deemed, unlawful competitor for the advocate's favors, conceived the spiteful idea of informing the Duchatels of what she had just discovered. Further to instigate her, all the real and all the fancied wrongs that her son had suffered from his father rose up before her, magnified by her imagination, and prompting her to the gratification of her unreasoning spleen. Her purpose was soon put into execution. That night Narcisse came home sober; and giving him some warm supper, followed by a delicacy that she had set aside for him as a dessert, and which, with a half human, half animal affection, she watched him devour, she broke the subject to him. He grinned with an infantile delight, as he heard the important secret, and discussed with her the project that might hinder the good fortune of the haughty foundling, whose disdain had long chagrined him, and under the recollection of whose scorn during the recent raid on Stillyside, he was yet smarting. With heightened pleasure she beheld his joyful interest, and, warming with his sympathy, whilst she gloated over the anticipated revenge, she exclaimed, as her face assumed a dark, prophetic aspect: “Yes, we will humble that mongrel, and her proud, petted child. What better are they than we, what nearer to thy father? See how I toil, and do his drudgery; keep him a home, who, but for me, would have no home, and no one to care for him. Yet no fine country house for me, fine clothes, rich presents; no fine gifts for thee, my child, no endless schooling, no sending thee to travel; no allowance, no expense to help to make of thee a gentleman, like his endeavours to make her child a lady; no fine lady sought for thee to be thy wife, Narcisse; no closetings for me, who, but for her, had been thy father's wife, and not his servant. But God and the virgin have at last heard our prayers. Narcisse, my darling, tell Alphonse Duchatel all that I have told thyself. Bid him quickly inform his father, brothers, sister; and if they have French blood in their veins they will balk this half-breed and her daughter brat.”

Never was there an apter pupil than Narcisse proved now; never a willinger. Scarcely could he refrain from at once rushing forth to find his friend, Alphonse; and he did at length arise with the blessing and Godspeed of his mother, intending to inform him, touching the rival who had so far and so suddenly outstripped his sister on the road of Claude's regard, when the voice of the advocate was heard calling upon his son to attend him in the room above. Narcisse obeyed; but filled with a sentiment of rising rebellion and new-born insolence, as of one who intends no longer to be checked, nor submit to unmerited harshness and tyranny. There the two had an altercation, provoked by the old grudges, and aggravated by Narcisse's recent dissipation, escapade, and neglect of duty, and still more sharpened by his present pertness and contumacy. Anger rose high between parent and child, and the latter, in unconcealed dudgeon flung from the room, and left the house, his breast charged with a spiteful purpose; and going straight to the lodgings of Alphonse Duchatel, he told all—and more than all—that he had learned respecting the menaced alliance between the children of Mainville and Montboeuf.

Burning with the information, the young and impetuous Alphonse scarcely slept that night, and in the morning, having obtained leave of absence, rode swiftly to his paternal home, and, in sudden, solemn family council, declared what he had learned of danger to the connubial scheme that had long been planned for his sister and the distinction of their house.