United States or Ireland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All the impatience and tenderness and not ignoble curiosity so long restrained assailed me now, as I gazed upon that solitary dwelling, where the unhappy mother of Lois de Contrecoeur had endured captivity for more than twenty years.
Across the stream lay Chateauguay and Longueuil, the patrimony of the Le Moynes; likewise the seigneuries of Varennes, Vercheres, Contrecoeur, St Ours, and Sorel. All of these were among the so-termed military seigneuries, having been originally given to retired officers of the Carignan regiment.
"My little daughter's champion!" she murmured. "Brave, and pure of heart! Ah, Monsieur, chivalry indeed is of no nation! It is a broader nobility which knows neither race nor creed nor ancestry nor birth.... How the child adores you!" "And you, Madame. Has ever history preserved another such example of dauntless resolution and filial piety as Lois de Contrecoeur has shown us all?"
Captain Contrecoeur, an alert officer, had embarked about a thousand men with field-pieces, in a fleet of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes, dropped down the river from Venango, and suddenly made his appearance before the fort, on which the men were working, and which was not half completed.
A chill passed through me, then the reaction came, taking me by the throat, setting my veins afire. "Then by God!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died unmarried, his child shall not!" "Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married here perhaps they had not heard." "Lois! Dearest of maids whichever is the truth I wish to marry you!"
If this tale be true, Contrecoeur recanted his determination, and wisely preferred making him a regular detachment, conditioned on his success in obtaining the union of the Indians, who, to the number of nearly a thousand warriors, were gathered at the place. Accordingly, the savages were at once called to a council.
"It is the next valley to the westward. A pass runs through and a little brook. Pleasant it is, Loskiel, with grassy glades and half a hundred little springs which we call 'Eyes of the Inland Seas." "You know," I said, "that in this valley all the hopes of Lois de Contrecoeur are centred." "I know, Loskiel," he answered gravely. "Do you believe her mother lives there still?"
Bleecker watching us intently; and when discovered she only laughed, but with such sweetness and good will that it left me happy and reassured. "We have arranged that Miss de Contrecoeur is to share my room with me at Croghan's," said Mrs. Bleecker. "And, Euan, I think you should send a wagon for her box at once. The distance is short; we will stroll home together."
Then the General asked for my report; and I gave it as exactly as I could, the General listening most attentively to my narrative, and Boyd deeply and sombrely interested. When I ended he said: "We have taken also a half-breed, one Madame Sacho. You say that Madame de Contrecoeur is at the Vale Yndaia with her daughter?" "Guarded by my Indians, General." "Very well, sir.
Doubtless they were full as curious as was I concerning Madame de Contrecoeur perhaps more so, because not one of them but believed her the Sorceress which unhappy circumstances had obliged her to pretend to be. Pagan or Christian, no Indian is ever rid of superstition.
Word Of The Day