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John the Baptist's Day, after a long conference with Lagroin and Parpon, Valmond went through the village, and came to the smithy to talk with Lajeunesse.
Recruits now arrived from other parishes, and besides those who came every night to drill, there were others who stayed always in camp. The lime-burner left his kiln, and sojourned with his dogs at Dalgrothe Mountain; the mealman neglected his trade; and Lajeunesse was no longer at his blacksmith shop, save after dark, when the red glow of his forge could be seen till midnight.
Big tam! Big tam! Never was so much fun in my house before!" "What's up?" asked Jack. "Big crowd comin' to-morrow!" replied the excited Johnny Gagnon. "Trackin' up rapids to-day. Send a fellow up ahead ask my wife bake plenty bread." "Who all is it?" Johnny counted them off on his fingers: "Bishop Lajeunesse and two priests. Every year come to marry and baptize. That's three. Four, Indian agent.
I am going to be to him what my mother was to you, a slave to the end a slave who loved you, and who gave you a daughter who will do the same for her husband " "No matter what he does or is eh?" "No matter what he is." Lajeunesse gasped. "You will give up singing! Not sing again before kings and courts, and not earn ten thousand dollars a month more than I've earned in twenty years?
"Till I've no more wind in my bellows!" responded Lajeunesse, raising his hand, "if he keeps faith with my Madelinette." "On the honour of a soldier," said Lagroin, and he crossed himself. "God save us all!" said Parpon. Obeying a motion of the dwarf's hand, Lagroin drew from his pocket a flask of cognac, with four little tin cups fitting into each other.
"France!" cried the old soldier stoutly, and tossed off the liquor. That night Valmond and his three new recruits, to whom Garotte the limeburner had been added, met in the smithy and swore fealty to the great cause. Lajeunesse, by virtue of his position in the parish, and his former military experience, was made a captain, and the others sergeants of companies yet unnamed and unformed.
"But there, la, la! many a time my wife, my good Florienne, said to me, 'Jose Jose Lajeunesse, with a chest like yours, you ought to be a corporal at least." Parpon beckoned to Lagroin, and nodded. "Corporal! corporal!" cried Lagroin; "in a week you shall be a lieutenant and a month shall make you a captain, and maybe better than that!"
You are right, smutty-face; I am Monsieur Talleyrand, Minister of the Crown." "The devil, you say!" cried the mealman. "Tut, tut!" said Lajeunesse, chaffing; "haven't you heard the news? The devil is dead!" The dwarf's hand went into his pocket. "My poor orphan," said he, trotting over and thrusting some silver into the blacksmith's pocket, "I see he hasn't left you well off.
It was a Sunday school in the little town of Wolfville, which lies between the Gaspereau and Cornwallis Rivers, just beyond the meadows of the Grand Pré, where lived Gabriel Lajeunesse, and Benedict Bellefontaine, and the rest of the 'simple Acadian farmers. I arrived too early at one of the village churches; and, while I was waiting for a sexton, a door opened, and out poured the Sunday school, whose services had just ended.
"Bishop Lajeunesse no long-chin religieux. Bishop say let yo'ng folks have a good time. Laugh and mak' fun wherever he go. He is a man!" Early as they were they no sooner finished breakfast than they heard a shrill hail from down river. Every soul about the place excepting Sam dropped what he was about and scampered down to the water's edge.
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