Cameron of Lochiel

"I understand now," said Dumais, "but what astonishes me is that a man like you, with everything heart could wish, should be amusing himself with blue devils."

"My dear Dumais," replied Archie, "I might answer that every one in the world has his sorrows, however fortunate he may seem; but it is enough now to say that the malady is upon me, and that I count upon you to help me to a cure."

"Command me, Mr. Archie; for I am at your service day and night."

"I have tried everything," continued Archie. "I have tried study, I have tried literary work. I am better in the day-time, but my nights are usually sleepless, and when I do sleep, I wake up as miserable as ever. I have concluded that nothing but hard manual labor can cure me. After toiling all day, I imagine that I shall win such a slumber as has long been denied me."

"Very true," said Dumais. "When a man has labored all day with his hands, I defy him to suffer from sleeplessness at night. But how shall I have the pleasure of helping you?"

"I expect you to cure me, my dear Dumais. But listen while I explain my plans. I am now rich, and since Providence has given me riches which I had never expected, I should employ a portion of them in doing good. In this parish and the neighborhood there is an immense deal of land unoccupied, either for sale or to be granted. My plan is to take up a large acreage of such lands, and not only superintend the clearing, but work at it myself. You know that I have good arms; and I will do as much as any of the rest."

"I know it," said Dumais.

"There are many poor fellows," continued Archie, "who will be glad enough to get work at such good wages as I shall give. You understand, Dumais, that I shall have to have some one to help me. Moreover, what would I do in the evening and during bad weather, without a friend to keep me company? It is then that my melancholy would kill me."

"Let us set out to-morrow," cried Dumais, "and visit the best lots, which, for that matter, I already know pretty well."

"Thank you," said Archie, grasping his hand; "but who will take care of your farm in your frequent absences?"

"Don't be anxious on that score, sir. My wife could manage very well alone, even without her brother, an old bachelor, who lives with us. My farm has never suffered much from my absence. I have always preferred the musket to the plow. My wife scolds me occasionally on this subject; but we are none the worse friends for that."

"Do you know," said Archie, "that yonder by the edge of the river, near that maple grove, is the most charming situation for a house. Yours is old. We will build one large enough for us all. I will build it, on condition that I have the right to occupy half of it during my life; and on my death all will belong to you. I have resolved to remain a bachelor."

"Men like you," said Dumais, "are altogether too scarce. It would be wrong to let the breed die out. But I begin to understand that you are thinking less about yourself than about me and my family, and that you are seeking to make us rich."

"Let us speak frankly," answered Archie. "I have no true friends in the world but the D'Haberville family and yours."

"Thank you, sir," said Dumais, "for classing us poor farmers with that illustrious family."

"I only consider the virtues and good qualities of men," answered Lochiel. "To be sure, I love and respect birth and breeding, which does not prevent me from loving and respecting all men who are worthy of such sentiments. I want to give you a fourth part of my fortune."

"Oh, sir!" cried Dumais.

"Listen a moment, my friend," continued Lochiel. "When I told you that I was suffering from what you call 'peine d'esprit,' I was telling the literal truth. I have found the remedy for this trouble. It lies in plenty of hard work and in helping my friends. I am going to give you during my life-time a quarter of my fortune. Look out for yourself, Dumais! I am obstinate, like all Scotchmen. If you trifle with me, instead of a quarter, I am as likely as not to give you a half. But, to speak seriously, my dear Dumais, you would be doing me a very ill turn, indeed, if you should refuse me."

"If this is the case, sir," said Dumais, with tears in his eyes, "I accept your gift."

Let us leave Lochiel busying himself in heaping benefits on Dumais, and let us return to our other friends.

"The good gentleman," now almost a hundred years old, lived but a year after Jules's return. He died surrounded by his friends, having been most lovingly nursed by Blanche and Jules throughout the month of his last illness. A little while before his death he begged Jules to open his bed-room window, and, casting a feeble glance toward the stream which rolled peacefully past his door, he murmured:

"There it is, my friend; there's the walnut tree in whose shadow I told you the story of my misfortunes; it was there I counseled you from my own experience. I die content, for I see that you have profited by my words. When I am gone, take this little candlestick. It will remind you of the vigils it has witnessed and of the advice which I have given you.

"As for you, my dear and faithful André," exclaimed M. d'Egmont, "it grieves me to leave you alone in this world where you have shared my sorrows. You have promised me to pass the rest of your days with the D'Habervilles, who will care for your old age tenderly. You know that after your death the poor are to be our heirs."

"My dear master," said Francœur, sobbing, "the poor will not have long to wait for their inheritance."

Having bid farewell to all his friends, "the good gentleman" asked the priest to say the prayers for the dying. Just at the words, "Partez âme Chrétienne, au nom du Dieu tout-puissant qui vous a créé," he breathed his last. Sterne would have said:

"The recording angel of the court of heaven shed a tear upon the follies of his youth, and blotted them out forever." The angels are more compassionate than men, who neither forget nor forgive the faults of others!

André Francœur was struck with paralysis on the day of his master's burial, and survived him but three weeks.

When Jules had said to his sister: "If I loved an English girl and she would have me, I would marry her as readily as one of my own countrywomen," Blanche had been far from suspecting her brother's real intentions. The truth was that Jules, on his voyage across the Atlantic, had made the acquaintance of a young English girl of great beauty. A second Saint-Preux, Jules had given her lessons in something more than French grammar during a passage that lasted two months. He had shown excellent taste. The young girl, in addition to her beauty, possessed the qualities to inspire a true passion.

All obstacles being at length overcome, and the consent of both families obtained, in the following year Jules married the fair daughter of Albion, who soon won the hearts of all about her.

Uncle Raoul, always bitter against the English on account of the leg which he had lost in Acadia, but too well bred to fail in the proprieties, used at first to shut himself up whenever he wanted to swear comfortably at the compatriots of his lovely niece; but by the end of a month she had entirely captivated him, whereupon he suddenly suppressed his oaths, to the great benefit of his soul and of the pious ears which he had scandalized.

"That rascal of a Jules," said Uncle Raoul, "showed very good taste in wedding this young English woman. His Holiness the Pope of old was quite right when he said that these young islanders would be angels if only they were Christians; non angli, sed angeli fuissent, si essent Christiani."

It was another thing when the dear uncle, trotting a little nephew on one knee and a little niece on the other, used to sing them the songs of the Canadian voyageurs. How proud he was when their mother used to cry:

"For pity sake, come to my help, dear uncle, for the little demons won't go to sleep without you."

Uncle Raoul had charged himself with the military education of his nephew. Therefore, before he was four years old, this pygmy warrior, armed with a little wooden gun, might be seen making furious attacks against the ample stomach of his instructor, who was obliged to defend with his cane the part assaulted.

"The little scamp," said the chevalier recovering himself, "is going to have the dashing courage of the D'Habervilles, with the persistence and independence of the proud islanders from whom he is descended through his mother."

José had at first shown himself rather cool toward his young mistress, but he ended by becoming warmly attached to her. She had speedily found the weak point in his armor of reserve. José, like his late father, dearly loved his glass, which, however, produced very little effect upon his hard head. It was as if one should pour the liquor upon the head of the weather-cock, and expect to confuse the judgment of that venerable but volatile bird. His young mistress was forever offering José a drop of brandy to warm him or a glass of wine to refresh him; till José ended by declaring that if the Englishmen were somewhat uncivil, their countrywomen by no means resembled them in that regard.

With their minds at ease as to the future of their children, M. and Madame D'Haberville lived happily to extreme old age. The captain's last words to his son were:

"Serve your new sovereign as faithfully as I have served the King of France; and may God bless you, my dear son, for the comfort that you have been to me!"

Uncle Raoul, dying three years before his brother, bid farewell to life with but one regret. He would have liked to see his little nephew fairly launched on the career of arms, the only career he considered quite worthy of a D'Haberville. Having perceived, however, that the child made great progress in his studies, he comforted himself with the thought that, if not a soldier, his nephew might turn out a savant like himself and keep the torch of learning lighted in the family.

José, who had a constitution of iron and sinews of steel, who had never had an hour of sickness, regarded death as a sort of hypothetical event. One of his friends said to him one day after his master's death:

"Do you know, José, you must be at least eighty years old, and one would scarcely take you to be fifty."

José leaned upon his hip to show his steadiness, blew through his pipe to expel a bit of ashes, fumbled in his pocket with his one remaining hand till he found his tobacco and his flint and steel, and at length replied with great deliberation.

"As you know, I am the foster-brother of our late captain; I was brought up in his house; I have followed him in every campaign that he has made; I have trained his two children; I have begun, do you see, upon a new charge, the care of his grandchildren. Very well, then! As long as a D'Haberville needs my services, I don't propose to leave."

"Do you think, then, that you will live as long as the late Maqueue-salé [Methuselah]?" asked the neighbor.

"Longer still, if need be," replied José.

Then, having taken from his pocket everything which he needed, he filled his pipe, put a bit of lighted tinder on the bowl, and applied himself to smoking while he regarded his friend with the air of a man convinced of the truth of everything which he has said.

José kept his word for a dozen years; but it was in vain that he endeavored to strengthen himself against old age by occupying himself with his usual tasks, despite the remonstrances of his masters, and at last he was forced to keep the house. All the family were anxious about him.

"What is the matter, my dear José?" said Jules.

"Bah! only laziness," replied José, "or perhaps my rheumatics."

But José had never had an attack of that malady. This was only an excuse.

"Give the good old fellow, ma'am, his morning glass, it will revive him," said Archie.

"I am going to bring you a little glass of excellent brandy," said Madame Jules.

"Not just now," replied José, " I always have some in my trunk, but this morning it doesn't appeal to me."

They began to be seriously alarmed; this was a bad symptom.

"Then I am going to make you a cup of tea," said Madame Jules, "and you will feel better."

"My English wife," said Jules, "thinks tea a remedy for all ills."

José drank the tea, and declared that it was a fine medicine and that he felt better, but this did not prevent the faithful servant from taking to his bed that very evening never to leave it alive.

When the brave fellow knew that his end was drawing near, he said to Jules, who watched with him through the night:

"I have prayed the good God to prolong my life to your childrens' next holidays, so that I might see them once more before I die, but I shall not have that consolation."

"You shall see them to-morrow, my dear José."

An hour later Lochiel was on the way to Quebec, and on the next evening all those who were the dearest in the world to that faithful and affectionate servant were gathered around his death-bed. After talking with them for some time and bidding them a most tender farewell, he summoned all his strength in order to sit up in bed, and when Jules approached to support him, a burning tear fell on his hand. After this last effort of that strong nature, he who had shared the good and the bad fortune of the D'Habervilles fell back and ceased to breathe.

"Let us pray for the soul of one of the best men that I have known," said Archie, closing his eyes.

Jules and Blanche, in spite of remonstrances, would not resign to any one the task of watching beside their old friend during the three days that his body remained at the manor house.

"If one of our family had died," they said, "Jules would not have left him to another's care."

One day when Archie, in the course of one of his frequent visits to the D'Habervilles, was walking with Jules in front of the manor house, he saw approaching on foot an old man, decently clad, carrying a sealskin bag on his shoulders.

"Who is that man?" he asked.

"Ah," said Jules, "that is our friend, M. D – , carrying his office on his back."

"What! His office?" said Archie.

"Certainly. He is an itinerant notary. Every three months he travels through certain districts, drawing up new deeds and finishing up copies of the rough drafts which he always carries with him in order that he may not be taken unawares. He is an excellent and very amiable man, French by birth, and very intelligent. On coming to Canada he began with a small trade in pictures which proved unprofitable, and then, remembering that he had formerly studied for two years with an advocate in France, he boldly presented himself before the judges, and passed an examination, which, if not brilliant, was at least satisfactory enough for his new country, and then returned home in triumph with a notary's commission in his pocket. I assure you that every one gets on well with his deeds, which are drawn with a most scrupulous honesty that supplies the place of the diction, purer but often tarnished by bad faith, of more learned notaries."

"Your nomadic notary," replied Archie, smiling, "arrives opportunely. I have work for him."

In fact, Lochiel, who was already well advanced in the task of clearing which he was so actively engaged upon for the benefit of his friend Dumais, made over to him in due form all his real estate, reserving only for himself during his life-time the half of the new and spacious house which he had built.

The visits of Archie to the manor house became more frequent as he advanced in age, and he ended by establishing himself there altogether. Blanche was no longer in his eyes anything more than an adopted sister; and the sweet name of brother, which Blanche had given him, purified the remnant of passion which yet clung to the heart of this noble woman.

The author has become so attached to the chief characters in this veracious history that it costs him a pang to banish them from the scene. He fears also to grieve those of his readers who may share this attachment should he kill them all off with one stroke of the pen. Time will do the fatal work without the author's assistance.

It is eleven o'clock in the evening, toward the end of October. The D'Haberville family are gathered in a little parlor sufficiently illuminated, without the help of the candles, by the flame from an armful of dry cedar chips which are blazing in the great chimney. Lochiel, now nearly sixty years of age, is playing a game of draughts with Blanche. Jules, seated between his wife and daughter, near the fire, is teasing them both without altogether neglecting the players.

Young Archie D'Haberville, only son of Jules and godson of Lochiel, is in a brown study. He is following the fantastic figures which his imagination has created in the flames now dying slowly on the hearth.

"What are you thinking about, my grave philosopher?" said his father.

"I have been watching with intense interest," answered the young man, "a little group of men, women, and children who have been walking, dancing, rising, falling, and who have at length all vanished."

The cedar fire had just died out.

"You are the true son of your mother, a godson worthy of your godfather," said Jules D'Haberville, rising to bid good-night.

Like the fantastic figures which young D'Haberville was watching in the flames, my characters, dear reader, have been moving for some time before your eyes, to vanish suddenly, perhaps forever, with him who set them in motion.

Farewell, then, dear reader, before my hand, growing more cold than our Canadian winters, refuses any longer to trace my thoughts.

THE END.

L. C. Page and Company's

Announcement List of New Fiction

The Flight of Georgiana

A Romance of the Days of the Young Pretender. By Robert Neilson Stephens, author of "The Bright Face of Danger," "An Enemy to the King," "The Mystery of Murray Davenport," etc.

Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50

Mr. Stephens's novels all bear the hall-mark of success, for his men are always live, his women are always worthy of their cavaliers, and his adventures are of the sort to stir the most sluggish blood without overstepping the bounds of good taste.

The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens splendid scope for all the powers at his command. The career of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" was full of romance, intrigue, and adventure; his life was a series of episodes to delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr. Stephens is to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising subject.

Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie

By Stephen Conrad, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."

Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50

This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim," since it gives further glimpses of that delightful step-mother and her philosophy. This time, however, she divides the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is quite as attractive in her different way. The book has more plot than the former volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much wholesome fun. In many ways it is a stronger book, and will therefore take an even firmer hold on the public.

The Story of Red Fox

Told by Charles G. D. Roberts, author of "The Watchers of the Trails," "The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara Ladd," etc.

Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and cover design by Charles Livingston Bull

$2.00

Mr. Roberts's reputation as a scientifically accurate writer, whose literary skill transforms his animal stories into masterpieces, stands unrivalled in his particular field.

This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red Fox, from babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading more fascinating than any work of fiction. In his hands Red Fox becomes a personality so strong that one entirely forgets he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip you as do those of a person.

Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to glove, and the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection as it is possible to attain.

Return

A Story of the Sea Islands in 1739. By Alice MacGowan and Grace MacGowan Cooke, authors of "The Last Word," etc. With six illustrations by C. D. Williams. Library 12mo, cloth

$1.50

A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by Miss MacGowan and Mrs. Cooke. The heroine of "Return," Diana Chaters, is the belle of the Colonial city of Charles Town, S. C., in the early eighteenth century, and the hero is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall. The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which first form the environment of the romance, are pictured in sharp contrast to the rude and exciting life of the frontier settlements in the Georgia Colony, and the authors have missed no opportunities for telling characterizations. But "Return" is, above all, a love-story.

We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who has read the advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of quite unusual strength and interest, full of vitality and crowded with telling characters. I greatly like the authors' firm, bold handling of their subject."

Lady Penelope

By Morley Roberts, author of "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of the Admiral," etc. With nine illustrations by Arthur W. Brown.

Library 12mo, cloth $1.50

Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has not a single point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr" or his well-known sea stories. Its setting is the English so-called "upper crust" of the present day. Lady Penelope is quite the most up-to-date young lady imaginable and equally charming. As might be expected from such a heroine, her automobiling plays an important part in the development of the plot. Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors, and her method of choosing her husband is original and provocative of delightful situations and mirthful incidents.

The Winged Helmet

By Harold Steele MacKaye, author of "The Panchronicon," etc. With six illustrations by H. C. Edwards.

Library 12mo, cloth $1.50

When an author has an original theme on which to build his story, ability in construction of unusual situations, skill in novel characterization, and a good literary style, there can be no doubt but that his work is worth reading. "The Winged Helmet" is of this description.

The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life in the early sixteenth century, and the reader will be delighted with its originality of treatment, freshness of plot, and unexpected climaxes.

A Captain of Men

By E. Anson More.

Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated $1.50

A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery of the value of tin brought untold riches into the country and afforded adventures without number to those daring seekers for the mines. Merodach, the Assyrian, Tanith, the daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam, her Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist of his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in individuality. It has been said that the powerful order of Free Masons first had its origin in the meetings which were held at Hiram's studio in Tyre, where gathered together the greatest spirits of that age and place.

The Paradise of the Wild Apple

By Richard LeGallienne, author of "Old Love Stories Retold," "The Quest of the Golden Girl," etc.

Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50

The theme of Mr. LeGallienne's new romance deals with the instinct of wildness in human nature, – the wander spirit and impatience of tame domesticity, the preference for wild flowers and fruits, and the glee in summer storms and elemental frolics. A wild apple-tree, high up in a rocky meadow, is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a young man well placed from the view of worldly goods and estate, who suddenly hungers for the "wild apples" of his youth. The theme has limitless possibilities, and Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use of them.

The Grapple

Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50

This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania gives both sides of the question, – the Union and its methods, and the non-Union workers and their loyal adherents, with a final typical clash at the end. The question is an absorbing one, and it is handled fearlessly.