Mary Dillon

“ My brain was teeming with tales of the Spanish adventurer De Soto; of the French trader Joliet; of the devoted and saintly Jesuit, beloved of the Indians, Père Marquette; and of the bold Norman La Salle, who hated and feared all Jesuits. I saw the river through a veil of romance that gilded its turbid waters, but it was something far other than its romantic past that set my pulses to beating, and the blood rushing through my veins so that I hardly heard my captain's answer, and hardly knew what I replied to him. ”

“ I had risen early, and though I had made an unusually careful toilet, calling Yorke to my aid to see that every lacer was fresh and securely tied, and my buckles shining, yet I had made much haste also, not knowing at what hour mademoiselle proposed starting, and fearing greatly to annoy her by being one moment tardy. So here had I sat smoking on the shady gallery a good two hours awaiting my lady's pleasure, and beginning inwardly to fume, for my temper was not such as to bear meekly even the caprices of a beautiful maiden—no, not though she might be also some great lady in disguise. ”

“ The western sun was flooding the cabinet of the First Consul when I went into my hiding-place, but the sun had set and twilight had fallen and the candles had been long lit when I stepped out into the corridor. The wax tapers set in sconces along the corridor lighted it but poorly, and I knew not which way to go.
"Run, Monsieur!" cried Gaston, in a terrified whisper, "straight down the corridor till you come to the grand staircase. And run as if the devil was after you, for he is!" ”

“ Saugrain's and Mr. Gratiot's eyes fixed curiously on me. I turned to Mr. Pierre Chouteau:
"Dr. Saugrain's ward must be fair indeed, to rouse such enthusiasm," I said.
"Vraiment," returned Pierre, "she is the Rose of St. Louis. But you dine with Dr. Saugrain to-day: you will see, and then you will know. Young Josef Papin yonder, who proposed the toast, is wild about her. And so are half the young men of the village."
"Vraiment," I murmured to myself, "if she is fairer than the scornful Mademoiselle Pelagie, she is fair indeed!" ”

“ I said, "and I think I could tell what your sigh meant."
"Did I sigh?"
"Yes, and it meant, 'I wish it were Leon.'"
"Yes," she said; "I was thinking how much Fatima loves you, and Leon, too, as soon as he was able to forgive your disgracing him so. I think all dogs and horses love you, Monsieur."
"That is because I love them, Mademoiselle."
"Does love always beget love?"
"Not always, Mademoiselle; sometimes it begets scorn."
"Then I suppose the love dies?"
"No, Mademoiselle; unhappily, it but grows the stronger." ”

“ My Leon! Why have they not told me? Oh, the villains! Who shot him, Clotilde? My poor angel! My Leon! No one left to love your poor mistress!" And much more that I cannot recall, I was so excited and angry that that rascal Yorke should have caused her such needless pain. But every word of Clotilde's next speech was graven on my heart as with a knife of fire.
"Mr. Yorke say they all hear the shot, and they all run out to see what the matter, and there stood the lieutenant with pistol in his hand, and Yorke say he don' think he shoot him, but—"
Clotilde had no chance to say another word. ”

“ I was beginning to feel that my task was a thankless one, and the picnic on Chouteau's Pond did not look to me quite so alluring as it had looked a few days before. Perhaps my face betrayed my feeling; for when we reached the foot of the incline and our path broadened out as it turned to follow the windings of the little river toward the pond, mademoiselle rode up beside me, and with a very pretty air indeed, half arch, half shy, wholly sweet, she said:
"I pray monsieur will not think me ungrateful. ”

“ Henriette, to whom, as her mistress, Madame du Bois, Pelagie gaily presented me; a man in the costume of a well-to-do bourgeois, whom they called Monsieur du Bois, but who, Pelagie whispered to me, was the prince's trusted body-servant; and Clotilde, whom I had not seen since I had seen her on La Belle Rivière, and who wept at the sight of me, a tribute to the memory of other days. Last of all there came out of the shadows my burly host of last night's inn. He had brought over to the little château a relay of fresh horses and a hamper of supper. ”

“ Mademoiselle was not so modest, or perhaps she thought no one had a better right than herself to speak on a subject so nearly concerning her.
"I think, sir," she said, lapsing into her native tongue, "you wrong the Chevalier Le Moyne. I have seen much of him in the week of his stay at Gabriel Cerré's, and he has been invariably respectful and most gentleman-like in all his demeanor."
"'Tis the very fact of his seeing so much of you, my child, that first roused my suspicions. He is forever hanging round you at dance and dinner; not even Josef Papin gets much chance to come nigh you." ”

“ In the first place, I do not perceive how they bear upon the question before me; it merely refers to the seizure of New Orleans, not to the maintenance of the balance of power. Again, of all characters, I think that of a conquering nation least becomes the American people. What, sir! Shall America go forth, like another Don Quixote, to relieve distressed nations and to rescue from the fangs of tyranny the powerful states of Britain, Spain, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands? Shall she, like another Phaëthon, madly ascend the chariot of Empire, and spread desolation and horror over the world? ”

“ It was in the early days of March, some eight months later, that the big barge in which I had come down the Ohio, and thus far on the Mississippi, put me ashore at New Madrid with my saddle-bags and my horse Bourbon Prince; for so I had promptly named the black beauty for whom I had exchanged my chestnut mare. He could never quite take the place of Fatima in my affections, but I had grown very fond of him: partly for his virtues, for he was a thoroughbred of famous lineage, and partly, I have no doubt, because he had once belonged to mademoiselle. ”

“ Safe in the hands of an assassin! You would give mademoiselle and her estates to the man who hid in your closet to attempt your life in your bath! Regardez! the coward—the sneak—the villain! When your Mameluke discovers him he flees. I run to your defense. Does he meet me with his sword like an honorable gentleman? No! he trips me with the foot like a school-boy, and throws me down the stair, to be the laughing-stock of my fellow-officers! Because he is a giant, he falls upon your sentry of small stature and hurls him down the terraces! ”

“ His eyes rolled in terror from the proposer of the toast to Captain Clarke, and back again. I knew my captain would never brook the indignity of having his health drunk at the same table and by the same people who afterward drank his slave's, and fearing an awkward contretemps, I sprang to my feet to avert it. I lifted my glass high as I cried:
"Listen to me, messieurs! Is there no fair lady to whose honor your young men would drink? For never could we drink to the ladies after drinking to a negro and a slave. ”

“ Starting from the gloom in every direction, armed figures seemed to spring from the ground, while down the great staircase behind me clattered, shrieking and shouting in every key, a throng of officers and soldiers, led by a dark figure gliding swiftly and silently far in advance, and holding in his upraised hand something that glittered as it caught the rays from wax tapers. In the very act of springing down the first terrace, I saw the glittering dagger leave Rustan's hand, hurled straight at my head, and heard it fall far below me on the stone parapet of the last terrace. ”

“ We did indeed make the landing, where a great concourse of people had gathered to meet us, among them a stately Spanish don (who, I had no doubt, was the governor) surrounded by a retinue of officers; but as the keel of our boat grounded in the soft mud and my captain called me to come with him to meet the governor, and I arose in my place to obey him, suddenly a great blackness and dizziness seized me, and I knew no more until I opened my eyes to find myself being borne, on the shoulders of four men, up the steep bluff toward the village street. ”

“ I gave Fatima's bridle to Cæsar and told him to wait for me while I walked down the green slope into the Park of Sylvie. Enchanting vistas opened before me, the moonlight filtering through arched canopies of foliage just enough to show me the way. Old tales of the Duchesse "Sylvie" and the poet-lover, condemned to death, whom she had hidden in this park and its little château floated through my mind strangely mingled with dreams of a later daughter of Montmorency. ”

“ The Consul was seated, while on one side of him stood the chevalier, and on the other the duchesse and the Comtesse de Baloit; and that any man should remain seated in the presence of the comtesse filled me at once with a blind rage that ill prepared me to play my part in what was about to follow. The attitude of the three struck me at once as significant: the duchesse complacent, with almost a smile upon her haughty features, and to the best of her ability beaming upon the First Consul; the chevalier eager, obsequious, fawning ”

“ Then slowly the tricolor sank, and slowly rose the starry banner, flinging out its broad bars of white and crimson, beautiful emblem of liberty and the sovereignty of a free people, over the little village, nestling among the trees on the bluffs, that may one day be a mighty city; over the Great River flowing to the Gulf that a not far future may see bearing the commerce of a world on its bosom; over the broad prairies stretching to the distant mountains which coming years will surely see peopled with happy millions. ”

“ I said, "do you not see that the very fact that the chevalier is trying to induce you to go to France alone with him is proof either of his villainy or of his colossal stupidity? Were he the angel of light he has sometimes seemed to you, and should he carry you safely to France and deliver you into the hands of your friends, yet who, in gay and skeptical Paris, would not be willing to believe the worst of both of you? The society that he has painted to you as ready to fall at your feet would be only ready to spurn you. ”

“ He! Ah, I could not have believed such baseness! He never forgave him for throwing him down-stairs! His last act before leaving Émigré's Retreat! Oh, mon Dieu, what perfidy! What a monster!"
And every word was so interrupted with sighs and moans and sobs as would have melted a heart of stone. [Pg 192]
As for me, I was nearly turned to stone, such horror did I feel that she should think me guilty of so base a deed. I had no thought of acting in my self-defense, but my captain started up at once with a quick exclamation, and, seizing my arm, dragged me around the pile of pelts. ”

“ Narcisse, on his knees on the hearth, was turning two great fowls suspended before the fire, from which oozed such rich and savory gravy as made one smack his lips. On another table a huge venison pasty and tarts and cakes of many kinds were temptingly arrayed, and madame's pride in her housewifely preparations for the Christmas feasting was pretty to see. She would have us taste her croquecignolles and little cakes, and had a glass of gooseberry wine brought out of the store-room for each of us, and we drank it standing in the kitchen, and helping ourselves from the pile of croquecignolles. ”

“ You will not stay to be at the mercy of a sneaking spy. See! I will call my red friends. Do not be afraid! They will carry you off, but I will be with you, and we will find horses and fly."
And without waiting for an answer he turned and imitated three times the call of a whippoorwill.
I knew what that meant—that in a moment the Osages would be upon us; and hardly had his first call left his lips before I too had turned and uttered the shrill whistle that always brought Fatima to my side. ”

“ The little doctor met us at the gate with a beaming face, and when Narcisse and Yorke had led away our horses we entered once more the long, low room we had first entered nearly two months before. The windows were no longer open, looking out into cool green foliage, with white muslin curtains stirring in the breeze, and there was no maiden in a white robe, with the blue ribbon of a guitar across her shoulders, singing creole love-songs. ”