ARRIVAL OF PIERRE PHILIBERT.
Dinner at the table of the Count de la Galissoniere was not a dull affair of mere eating and drinking. The conversation and sprightliness of the host fed the minds of his guests as generously as his bread strengthened their hearts, or his wine, in the Psalmist's words, made their faces to shine. Men were they, every one of them possessed of a sound mind in a sound body; and both were well feasted at this hospitable table.
The dishes were despatched in a leisurely and orderly manner, as became men who knew the value of both soul and body, and sacrificed neither to the other. When the cloth was drawn, and the wine-flasks glittered ruby and golden upon the polished board, the old butler came in, bearing upon a tray a large silver box of tobacco, with pipes and stoppers and a wax candle burning, ready to light them, as then the fashion was in companies composed exclusively of gentlemen.
He placed the materials for smoking upon the table as reverently as a priest places his biretta upon the altar,--for the old butler did himself dearly love the Indian weed, and delighted to smell the perfume of it as it rose in clouds over his master's table.
"This is a bachelors' banquet, gentlemen," said the Governor, filling a pipe to the brim. "We will take fair advantage of the absence of ladies to-day, and offer incense to the good Manitou who first gave tobacco for the solace of mankind."
The gentlemen were all, as it chanced, honest smokers. Each one took a pipe from the stand and followed the Governor's example, except Peter Kalm, who, more philosophically, carried his pipe with him--a huge meerschaum, clouded like a sunset on the Baltic. He filled it deliberately with tobacco, pressed it down with his finger and thumb, and leaning back in his easy chair after lighting it, began to blow such a cloud as the portly Burgomaster of Stockholm might have envied on a grand council night in the old Raadhus of the city of the Goths.
They were a goodly group of men, whose frank, loyal eyes looked openly at each other across the hospitable table. None of them but had travelled farther than Ulysses, and, like him, had seen strange cities and observed many minds of men, and was as deeply read in the book of human experience as ever the crafty king of Ithaca.
The event of the afternoon--the reading of the royal despatches--had somewhat dashed the spirits of the councillors, for they saw clearly the drift of events which was sweeping New France out of the lap of her mother country, unless her policy were totally changed and the hour of need brought forth a man capable of saving France herself and her faithful and imperilled colonies.
"Hark!" exclaimed the Bishop, lifting his hand, "the Angelus is ringing from tower and belfry, and thousands of knees are bending with the simplicity of little children in prayer, without one thought of theology or philosophy. Every prayer rising from a sincere heart, asking pardon for the past and grace for the future, is heard by our Father in heaven; think you not it is so, Herr Kalm?"
The sad foreboding of colonists like La Corne St. Luc did not prevent the desperate struggle that was made for the preservation of French dominion in the next war. Like brave and loyal men, they did their duty to God and their country, preferring death and ruin in a lost cause to surrendering the flag which was the symbol of their native land. The spirit, if not the words, of the old English loyalist was in them:
"For loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shone upon."
New France, after gathering a harvest of glory such as America had never seen reaped before, fell at last, through the neglect of her mother country. But she dragged down the nation in her fall, and France would now give the apple of her eye for the recovery, never to be, of "the acres of snow" which La Pompadour so scornfully abandoned to the English.
These considerations lay in the lap of the future, however; they troubled not the present time and company. The glasses were again replenished with wine or watered, as the case might be, for the Count de la Galissoniere and Herr Kalm kept Horatian time and measure, drinking only three cups to the Graces, while La Corne St.
Luc and Rigaud de Vaudreuil drank nine full cups to the Muses, fearing not the enemy that steals away men's brains. Their heads were helmeted with triple brass, and impenetrable to the heaviest blows of the thyrsus of Bacchus. They drank with impunity, as if garlanded with parsley, and while commending the Bishop, who would drink naught save pure water, they rallied gaily Claude Beauharnais, who would not drink at all.
In the midst of a cheerful concert of merriment, the door of the cabinet opened, and the servant in waiting announced the entrance of Colonel Philibert.
All rose to welcome him. Pierre looked anxious and somewhat discomposed, but the warm grasp of the hands of so many true friends made him glad for the moment.
"Why, Pierre!" exclaimed the Count, "I hope no ill wind has blown you to the city so unexpectedly! You are heartily welcome, however, and we will call every wind good that blows our friends back to us again."
"It is a cursed wind that blows me back to-day," replied Philibert, sitting down with an air of disquiet.
"Why, what is the matter, Pierre?" asked the Count. "My honored Lady de Tilly and her lovely niece, are they well?"
"Well, your Excellency, but sorely troubled. The devil has tempted Le Gardeur again, and he has fallen. He is back to the city, wild as a savage and beyond all control."